Project Title: Functional Abilities of Children with Bilateral Hearing Principal Investigator: Ruth Litovsky, PhD Deaf children who receive cochlear implants typically do so in a single ear. Subsequent to successful bilateral implantation with several hundred adults, and indications that bilateral implants provide adults with added benefits, a small number of children in the USA have also received bilateral implants, typically in sequential surgeries several years apart. The goal of this work is to investigate the ability of these children to function in simulated complex acoustic environments. An additional goal is to compare the benefit of bilateral hearing (2 implants vs. 1 implant and 1 hearing aid) by including children with unilateral implants who have a hearing aid in the non-implanted ear. Their ability to combine inputs from the two devices and to either localize sounds or hear speech in noise was investigated under either monaural or bilateral listening modes. The work in this project is testing the hypothesis that auditory experience prior to and following activation of the second implant plays an important role in improving perceptual/sensory abilities that involve binaural mechanisms. In addition, that children with two cochlear implants are better able to combine information from the two ears than children with one device of each type.

Copyright © 2006 Waisman Center Last updated 2/6/2006 by rowley@waisman.wisc.edu Waisman Center ~ 1500 Highland Avenue ~ Madison, WI 53705-2280 Telephone: (608) 263-5776 or (608) 263-5910 ~ TDD: (608) 263-0802 FAX: (608) 263-0529 ~ webmaster@waisman.wisc.edu ~ www.waisman.wisc.edu