Performance of prelingually and postlingually deaf patients using single-channel or multichannel cochlear implants

The auditory and aided lipreading performance of 8 prelingually and 11 postlingually deaf patients who had received a single-channel or multichannel cochlear implant was evaluated during 2 years of follow-up. Although all the patients improved on both closed-set pattern recognition and speech discrimination tests and on a Continuous Discourse Tracking task, the most significant improvement was observed in the postlingually deaf patients who were using a multichannel implant. These patients were the only ones to achieve open-set speech recognition in the auditory-only condition. Only small differences were found between prelingually deaf patients who were using a single-channel system and those who were using a multichannel system. The users' evaluations, obtained by means of a questionnaire, were generally positive in all patients. Based on the study results, the authors concluded that it is feasible to use cochlear implants in highly motivated prelingually deaf patients who have learned to use oral-aural communication.