Speech auditory evoked potentials in cochlear implant recipients in relation to rehabilitation outcomes

Abstract

Background: Speech perception abilities showed great variability among different cochlear implants (CIs) recipients. Assessment of such perceptual abilities through behavioural speech perception tests is very limited, especially in young recipients. Hence, objective auditory evoked potentials (AEPs) can be very important in the assessment of such a young age group.

Objectives: To study the ability to use different types of speech evoked AEPs clinically for the assessment of auditory pathway at different levels in children fitted with CIs.

Methods: Two groups of children fitted with CIs participated in this study. They were divided into two groups according to their language improvement quotient (LIQ): Group I: included 20 children with LIQ >0.7 and Group II: included 20 children with LIQ <0.7. Children were evaluated through an auditory skills assessment, aided sound field, aided speech evoked AEPs.

Results: Children of group I showed better aided-AEPs results in response to speech stimuli compared with group II with the significant positive effect of early age of implantation on the results.

Conclusions: Objective aided-AEPs recording in response to complex sounds (such as speech) can be used efficiently for evaluation of speech perception at different levels along the auditory pathway in children fitted with CIs. In addition, they constitute a promising tool for following up and designing the appropriate rehabilitation programs.

Keywords:

• Cochlear implants (CIs)
• cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs)
• mismatch negativity (MMN)
• auditory brainstem response to complex Sound (cABR)
• language improvement quotient (LIQ)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.