Optimising Hearing Aid Fittings of Children Who Also Use Cochlear Implants Teresa Ching(1),
Colleen Psarros(2) and Mandy Hill(1) An increasing number of hearing impaired children who use a cochlear implant in one ear have useable residual hearing in the opposite ear for acoustic amplification. This study investigates how hearing aids can be adjusted to work best with cochlear implants. We used a loudness balance procedure and a paired comparison procedure to determine the optimal hearing aid characteristics for 11 congenitally hearing impaired children. All children used a CI22 or CI24 cochlear implant programmed with SPEAK strategy, and have had stable maps for at least 6 months prior to the commencement of the study. They must also have continued to use hearing aids for at least 6 hours a day. This paper compares the optimal hearing aid frequency response to the NAL prescription, and reports speech perception and functional performance of children using cochlear implant alone, hearing aid alone, and cochlear implant with hearing aid. (Funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Cochlear Implant and Hearing Aid Innovation, Australia) |