Speech Perception With Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants

Abstract

• A battery of tests using speech materials was developed to evaluate the auditory perception skills of five subjects with profound postlingual hearing loss. Two of the subjects wore hearing aids, and three subjects used cochlear implants. Responses of the two subjects with hearing aids were consistently superior to those of the subjects with implants, and one of the three subjects with implants consistently performed better than the other two. The subjects with implants displayed wide variations in response, indicating the necessity of evaluating each implant prosthesis as it was used by a given subject. In addition to tests of auditory speech perception, a measure of lipreading ability with amplification provided useful information. (Arch Otolaryngol 1981;107:160-163)