Study of the performance of four prelinguistically or perilinguistically deaf patients with a multi‐electrode, intracochlear implant

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Abstract
Individuals who are born deaf or become deaf in early childhood and are implanted as adults (or in late adolescence) with a multi‐electrode, intracochlear implant often cannot understand speech by audition alone. Test results of four implanted patients were analyzed to determine 1. if there was a difference in performance between patients; 2. if there was a relation between performance and history of auditory stimulation; and 3. which tests revealed performance differences. On audition‐only and audition‐plus‐vision tests, overall performance was rank‐ordered from lowest to highest for patients 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. Patient 4 recognized a few words audition‐only. Patients 1 and 2 had long periods of no auditory stimulation; patients 3 and 4 had long periods of auditory stimulation with hearing aids prior to implantation. Tests not revealing differences in performance were identified.