Cochlear implants in children: benefits and concerns

Cochlear implants have been used in investigational studies with profoundly deaf children aged 2 to 18 years. Results with the 3M/House implant indicate that this device is safe and effective. The implant provides auditory detection of much of the acoustic speech signal, significant improvement in auditory discrimination compared with preimplant with hearing aids, and improved speech production skills. A longitudinal control-group study of auditory discrimination and a cross-sectional study of speech using age-matched controls support the interpretation that these improvements are due to the cochlear implant. In addition, 26 of 50 children (52%) tested for open-set word recognition and 17 of 41 (41.5%) tested for open-set sentence comprehension demonstrated such abilities using the cochlear implant. Adverse effects have been minimal. Early results from three children with the Nucleus multichannel cochlear implant clearly indicate the efficacy of that device.