• Speech Sciences
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.197-202
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• 2005

The cochlear implantation(CI) as an useful tool for aural rehabilitation in bilateral severe to profound hearing impairment. However, CI prefer to usually one ear in spite of bilateral hearing impaired. because of the various characteristics of hearing loss, the hearing conservation for the future possibility, and socioeconomic condition of hearing impaired person and their families. The unilateral CI has limitations such as a directional loss, a difficult speech understanding in noise and a neural plasticity. These limitations will be overcome by hearing aid(HA) which is familiar with hearing impairer. but HA fitting for bimodal-binaural hearing are difficult because the difference output characteristic of HA and CI. This study will be confirm realities of use of HA in unilateral cochlear implantee. For this goal, 25(m:f=10:15) child participated who are used to HA for 1 to 17 months. We had telephone interviews with their mother about use of HA, change of auditory performance and own voice. As the results, hearing threshold levels of unimplanted ear, the use of a appropriate HA, implanted and aided hearing threshold level(HTL) are must be considered for successful biomodal-binaural hearing. Especially, implanted and aided HTL should be very useful parameter for a prediction of HA effect and a criterion of selection for bilateral cochlear implantation.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2022

Sound quality evaluation is one of the psychoacoustic methods to measure subjective judgements for sound color. The purpose of this study is to investigate sound quality benefits of bimodal users by comparing sound quality scores between bimodal hearing condition and unilateral cochlear implant(CI) condition as a preliminary study. Thirteen bimodal users and seven unilateral CI users were participated in this study. Audiologists performed pure tone and speech audiometry and measured functional gain and real-ear insertion gain. Subjective assessment of sound quality was followed with four sounds including violin sound, male and female voices, and refrigerator noise. Participants judged the sound quality with six sound quality index. Bimodal users showed mean 0.8 points more sound quality improvements in bimodal condition than unilateral CI condition. Group comparison between bimodal and unilateral CI users showed no differences. A follow-up study of sound quality tools and methods should be considered to evaluate subjective bimodal benefits of cochlear implant users.

• Korean Journal of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery
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• v.61 no.12
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• pp.650-657
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• 2018

Background and Objectives The present study aimed to compare receptive and expressive language development in children who have undergone simultaneous bilateral cochlear implantation (SCI) and those who have undergone bimodal stimulation (unilateral CI+ hearing aid). Subjects and Method In a retrospective analysis of clinical data, 15 pediatric patients who have received SCI and nine patients who have received bimodal stimulation (BM group) were enrolled. CI was performed for all patients at 24 months of age. Category of Auditory Performance (CAP) scores, Infant-Toddler Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (IT-MAIS) scores, and developmental quotients (DQ) for expressive and receptive language were compared between the groups at 12 month of follow-up. The Percentage of Consonants Correct (PCC) of children evaluated at 4 years old was also compared. Results At 12 months of follow-up, significantly greater improvements in CAP scores (${\Delta}4.25{\pm}0.5$) were noted in the SCI group compared to the BM group (${\Delta}3.56{\pm}0.88$, p=0.041). Significantly greater improvements in IT-MAIS scores were also noted in the SCI group (${\Delta}36.17{\pm}4.09$) than in the BM group (${\Delta}30.17{\pm}2.91$, p=0.004). The DQ of receptive language was higher in the SCI group than in the BM group ($87.6{\pm}15.4%$ vs. $75.5{\pm}12.0%$, p=0.023) at 12 months of follow-up. Moreover, early SCI was associated with better receptive language skills. PCC index of children at 4 years old was higher in the SCI group than in the BM group ($88.5{\pm}13.2%$ vs. $62{\pm}15.8%$, p=0.014). Earlier SCI was associated with even greater improvements. Conclusion Bilateral SCI is associated with significant improvements in language development when compared with bimodal stimulation. Earlier SCI was associated with better outcomes.