Study on long-term performance evaluation of auditory and speech ability in cochlear implant in congenital deaf children with cochlear nerve deficiency after cochlear implantation

Objective·To evaluate the long-term performance and influencing factors of auditory and speech abilities, and social-life abilities in congenital deaf children with cochlear nerve deficiency (CND) after cochlear implant (CI) surgery.Methods·Twenty-one CND children with CI implantation in Shanghai Ninth People′s Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine were assigned to CND group, and twenty children with extremely severe sensorineural hearing loss with normal inner ear structure matching implantation age and CI use time of the CND group were selected as control group. The aided hearing threshold, Infant-toddler Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (IT-MAIS), LittlEARS Auditory Questionnaire (LEAQ), Categories of Auditory Performance-Ⅱ (CAP-Ⅱ), Meaningful Use of Speech Scale (MUSS), Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR), closed and open disyllabic speech recognition test, and speech intelligibility test were used to hierarchically evaluate the subjects′ auditory and verbal abilities, and the Infant-junior Middle School Student′s Social Life Ability Scale (S-M Scale) was used to assess the subjects′ social-life ability.Results·The average aided hearing threshold of each frequency point in the CND group was significantly worse than that of the control group (all P