New developments in cochlear implants for adults and children.
Richard TYLER

Cochlear implants allow electrical stimulation of auditory neurons in deaf patients who receive limited benefit from hearing aids. This presentation reviews basic principles of signal processing and candidate selection. Recent data obtained from adults and children who have received cochlear implant will be described. Included will be prelingually deaf children who have been followed five years postimplantation. Although most children show steady progress in understanding speech, some children obtain very limited benefit from their cochlear implant.
We shall discuss variables that might influence performance.
A second group to be discussed will include postlingually deaf adults. We will discuss long-term results of patients using the Ineraid, Nucleus, and Clarion Cochlear Implants. Preliminary average results suggest that patients with the Clarion Cochlear Implant show a rapid rate of improvement and obtain higher levels of speech understanding. We are able to explain about 45 % of the variance accounting for patient performance by examining preimplant biographical, psychological, and electrophysiological variables. A new multichannel device developed in Austria, the MedE1 Cochlear Implant, allows for a wide range of parametric
manipulations in fitting the patient.