Audiological rehabilitation of patients with brainstem disorders

A brief account is given of the course of rehabilitation of three patients with severe brainstem injuries. Particular use has been made of synthetic speech pattern assessment procedures which have been integrated into the management model of Goldstein and Stephens (1981). The use of speech stimuli of controllable simplicity has two main clinical benefits: the early course of re-acquisition can be examined analytically, second, aspects of speech receptive and productive rehabilitation can be facilitated. Re-acquisition of perceptive ability in some of these patients may follow a progression from simple to complex acoustic pattern contrasts and this may provide an effective basis for future techniques of rehabilitation.