Rehabilitation Outcomes in 225 Children after Receiving Cochlear Implants

MAO Yi-tao; WU Wei-jing; XIE Ding-hua; PENG An-quan; XIAO Zi-an; YANG Shu; LIU Jia

doi:10.3969/j.issn.1672-2922.2013.02.004

Abstract： Objective The purpose of the present study was to study the relationship between rehabilitation outcomes and the age at implantation as well as the duration of implant use, and to compare the standardized assessment procedures in China and those commonly used internationally. Methods Two hundred twenty five children who received cochlear im-plants in our hospital in recent years were identified and separated into two groups based upon if their ages were older than 3 years or not at implantation. Their clinical data were reviewed and their speech perception and production prior to, and at third, sixth, ninth, twelfth months after device activation were evaluated. Their CAP and SIR scores were collected through questionnaires at each assessment interval. Results The overall rehabilitation level improved along with the increase of du-ration of implant use. The performance in children who were younger than 3 years at implantation improved more rapidly in speech perception and production as compared with the other children, although there was no remarkable difference in the rate of CAP and SIR improvement between the two groups. There were prominent positive correlations between speech per-ception rate and CAP, and between speech age and SIR. There was no statistically significant difference between the two types of implant. Conclusion Two of the most important factors affecting post-operational rehabilitation results are age at implantation and duration of implant use. The younger the age at implantation and the longer the duration of implant use, the better the rehabilitation results. The standardized assessment procedures used in China are comparable to those com-monly used internationally on some aspects and they can be used in a complementary manner, although they cannot replace each other completely.