Speech Discrimination Outcomes in Adult Cochlear Implant Recipients by Primary Language and Bilingual Hispanic Patients

Objective Compare cochlear implant (CI) outcomes in English speakers, Spanish speakers, and bilingual Hispanics. Study Design Retrospective review. Setting Academic tertiary care center. Methods Eighty‐five postlingually deafened adults unilaterally implanted between January 2014 and December 2018 w...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Otolaryngology-head and neck surgery 2024-01, Vol.170 (1), p.204-211
Main Authors: Velandia, Sandra, Martinez, Diane, Peña, Stefanie, Misztal, Carly, Goncalves, Stefania, Ma, Ruixuan, Angeli, Simon, Telischi, Fred, Holcomb, Meredith, Dinh, Christine T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
bilingual
cochlear implant
Cochlear Implantation
Cochlear Implants
English
Hispanic
Humans
Language
Noise
Spanish
speech discrimination
Speech Perception - physiology
Citations: Items that this one cites
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Objective Compare cochlear implant (CI) outcomes in English speakers, Spanish speakers, and bilingual Hispanics. Study Design Retrospective review. Setting Academic tertiary care center. Methods Eighty‐five postlingually deafened adults unilaterally implanted between January 2014 and December 2018 were stratified by primary language. Primary outcomes were: (1) English consonant‐nucleus‐consonant and Spanish bisyllables word tests in quiet, and (2) English AzBio and Latin American Hearing In Noise Test (LA‐HINT) sentence tests in quiet and in noise at multiple time‐intervals postactivation. Results In the respective languages, primary Spanish speakers (n = 24), and English speakers (n = 61) experienced the greatest increases in average scores for word and sentence tests in quiet during the first 6 months postactivation, with gradual increases in average scores over time. English speakers performed significantly worse on AzBio tests in noise, compared to quiet, while the addition of noise did not significantly affect average LA‐HINT scores in Spanish speakers across multiple time intervals. An early ceiling effect was also demonstrated for LA‐HINT. Although not significant, bilingual Hispanics (n = 12) had lower average AzBio in quiet scores than English speakers and higher average LA‐HINT in quiet scores than the Spanish speakers across multiple time intervals. Conclusion English and Spanish CI users experienced the greatest increases in speech understanding in quiet the first few months after implant activation. An early ceiling effect is demonstrated with LA‐HINT, indicating LA‐HINT is not appropriate for evaluating longitudinal CI outcomes in Spanish speakers. Bilingual Hispanics represent a unique group, and further investigations are necessary to understand speech perception patterns in both languages and develop the best CI test strategies for these individuals.
ISSN:0194-5998
1097-6817
DOI:10.1002/ohn.485