Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 6, 2026
Systematic Hearing Performance Evaluation Process for Adolescents with Cochlear Implantation at Early Ages
Published on: March 24, 2023
Does Age Impact Relative Baseline Performance and Improvement on Clinical Speech Recognition Tests in Adult Cochlear
Barak Spector1, Katelyn A Berg1, Michael W Canfarotta1
1Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Objective:
To examine the relative impact of advancing age on clinical speech recognition performance before and after cochlear implantation across tasks varying in auditory and cognitive demands.
Study Design:
Retrospective review of prospectively collected data.
Setting:
Cochlear implant (CI) center.
Patients:
Seventy-five CI recipients aged 20 to 88 years (mean=67.6, SD: 15.8).
Interventions:
Speech recognition before and after CI.
Main Outcome Measures:
Pre-CI performance and post-CI improvement on Consonant-Nucleus-Consonant (CNC) word recognition, AzBio sentences in quiet (AzBioQ), and AzBio sentences in noise (AzBioN); multivariate regression models accounting for relevant covariates.
Results:
Age negatively predicted pre-CI performance on AzBioQ (β=-0.18, P=0.025) and AzBioN (β=-0.17, P=0.024), but not CNC (β=0.00, P=0.988), when controlling for pure-tone average (PTA), duration of deafness (DoD), and sex. Older age predicted less post-CI improvement in AzBioN (β=-0.30, P=0.024), but not CNC (β=-0.24, P=0.054) or AzBioQ (β=-0.18, P=0.171), when controlling for DoD, CI usage, electrode type, and sex. Daily CI usage predicted post-CI improvement in CNC (β=3.80, P=0.001) and AzBioQ (β=3.07, P=0.009), but not AzBioN. Electrode type and sex were not significant predictors of post-CI improvements.
Conclusions:
Advancing age is associated with poorer pre-CI sentence recognition and smaller gains in post-CI sentence recognition in noise, likely reflecting combined auditory and cognitive changes. These findings highlight the importance of age-informed counseling and expectation-setting for older CI candidates.
Level Of Evidence:
Level IV-Historical cohort or case-controlled studies.
Indicate Irb:
240876.