Abstract
Objective: Compare the influence of cochlear implantation (CI) in infants under 6 months vs older infants and children with bilateral profound sensorineural hearing loss on auditory-based outcomes.
Method: Twelve infants aged 2 to 6 months, 9 infants aged 7 to 12 months, and 34 children aged 13 to 48 months, bilaterally profoundly deaf, fitted with CI without associated disabilities, were evaluated longitudinally with the Category of Auditory Performance, the Infant-Toddler Meaningful Auditory Integration, the Fanzago test, the PFLI test of Bortolini, and video analysis.
Results: The age at fitting CI ranged from 2 to 48 months, and the degree of hearing loss was bilateral and profound in all children. Age at CI implantation was a significant factor in outcome measures of speech production and spoken language skills. The 2 to 6 months group showed significantly better results at the Fanzago and PFLI test of Bortolini than the older children even after 5 years of CI use (P > .05).
Conclusion: For the first time the decisive importance of fitting CIs before 6 months of age on communication outcomes becomes evident. Further studies on larger numbers of infants implanted under 6 months are necessary to validate the present findings.
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