Daily Cochlear Implant Use Predicts Pitch and Melody Perception in Adolescents With Prelingual Deafness

While speech outcomes have been extensively studied, limited evidence exists regarding how real-world auditory experience shapes music perception-particularly in adolescents with prelingual deafness. This study aimed to explore the relationship between daily cochlear implant (CI) use, long-term CI experience, and music perception abilities in adolescent CI users.

This cross-sectional study included 24 unilateral adolescent CI users and 12 age-matched peers with normal hearing (NH). Participants completed two music perception tasks: pitch direction discrimination (PDD) and melodic contour identification (MCI). Daily CI use and cumulative CI usage duration (time since implantation) were obtained via data logging and included in the analyses.

The CI group demonstrated significantly poorer performance compared with peers with NH on both PDD and MCI tests. Longer daily CI use was moderately associated with better performance on both the PDD and MCI tasks, while total CI experience correlated positively with MCI scores.

Consistent daily CI use is associated with better performance in both basic pitch discrimination and higher order melodic perception in adolescents. These findings highlight the value of maximizing auditory input not only for speech perception outcomes but also for supporting music-related auditory skills.