The University of Melbourne--nucleus multi-electrode cochlear implant

To summarize, our preliminary results indicate that some prelingually deaf patients may get worthwhile help from a multiple-electrode cochlear implant which extracts formants. They can understand words and running speech better when using the cochlear implant with lip-reading compared to lip-reading alone. It has been encouraging that these improvements can occur in young adults and teenagers. It has also been encouraging that some can recognize place pitch as well as rate pitch. There are, however, considerable variations in performance and this may be due to the following factors: whether they have had some hearing after birth, the method of education used, the motivation of the patient and age at implantation. In conclusion it is important to emphasize that deaf children are severely disadvantaged however good their teacher of the deaf. Research on cochlear implants offers hope for profoundly-totally deaf children. These developments will not replace the caring, competent educators but complement their skills. There is also a greater need than ever for an interdisciplinary approach to these children.