Speech Perception in Children with Cochlear Implants

Cochlear implants provide access to the speech signal in children with hearing loss that often cannot benefit from acoustic hearing aids. However, despite the numerous positive results in pediatric cochlear implantation, published data still indicated a wide range of performance among implant recipients. Hence, a need to study the possible variables that can affect performance, could account for the diversity of performance and affect speech perception is critical to both the professionals working with the parents and to the parents themselves. Categorizing these determinants increases the ability of clinicians to offer educated preoperative prognoses to the families and might potentially allow for manipulation of variables in an attempt to achieve the best possible outcome. This article presents an overview of these factors.