A Case Series Report: Prelingually Deaf Cochlear Implant Users and Factors Associated with Outcomes

Approximately 219,000 people worldwide have received cochlear implants (CI) as of 2010. This retrospective study uniquely investigated three important components together including pre-lingual CI recipients (the most difficult-to-treat CI population), speech recognition before and after CI, and factors that may be associated with positive or negative speech recognition outcomes. Eight cases of pre-lingual CI users were selected, including four subjects with relatively better scores and four subjects with relatively poor scores. To compare these two groups, eight factors were investigated: gender; etiology; age of implantation; type of implant device; communication mode (oral, speech reading, or sign); patient compliance (attending scheduled clinic follow-up); family/environmental influence; and frequency using the CI device. Although the finding from this investigation is not statistically conclusive like other similar studies, it appears that some factors, such as patient compliance, oral communication, family environment, and/or the frequency using the CI device, may contribute to positive speech recognition outcomes.