Auditory performance analysis in cochlear implanted patients

The aim of this study is to analyze the development of auditory performance of the cochlear implanted patients.The effects of age at implantation, sex, implanted ear and model of the cochlear implant to the patients? auditory performance also investigated.Twenty eight patients who had congenital prelingual onset of hearing loss and had received cochlear implant at the ENT Department of the Çukurova University Medical Faculty with 18 months follow-up were included in this study.LiP (Listening Progress Profile), MTP (Monosyllable-Trochee-Polysyllable) and MAIS (Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale) tests were performed for analyzing patient?s auditory performance.To establish the effect of age at implantation to the auditory performance, patients were assigned into two groups: group I (implantation age ?60 months, mean 44,8 months) and group II (implantation age >60 months, mean 100,6 months).Analysis of LiP test data showed a significant increase after 1 month of cochlear implant use compared to preoperative scores (p<0,01).Analysis of MTP test data revealed a significant improvement of word recognition after 1 and 3 months following first fitting (p<0,01).MAIS test data also revealed a significant increase after 3 months of cochlear implant use (p<0,01).A temporary decrease was observed 2 days after first fitting compared to preoperative scores in MTP test scores for group I and group II and in LiP test scores for group II.Group II had preoperatively higher test scores than younger children but after cochlear implant use the auditory performance levels of the patients in group I improved faster and equalised to those of the patients in group II after 12-18 months.Our data showed that the variables like sex, implanted ear or model of the cochlear implant did not demonstrate any statistically significant effect to the auditory performance of the patients.As a conclusion, we found a negative correlation with implantation age and the auditory performance improvement in our study. We observed that children implanted at young age, have a quicker language development and then have a more success on reading, writing and other educational skills.