Environmental Sound Perception of Cochlear Implant Users

Abstract

Introduction Most current adult cochlear implant (CI) users achieve higher open-set speech perception scores post- surgery than pre- surgery, a factor which greatly improves their overall quality of life. There is little published research assessing the ability of CI users to identify environmental sounds, an important skill which also impacts upon a patient’s quality of life. This study compared adult CI users to normally hearing (NH) listeners in their ability to identify various environmental sounds. The Environmental Sounds Perception Test (ESPT) developed for this study was more difficult and more comprehensive than those used in current studies, in order to reduce the likelihood of any potential ceiling effect affecting the results. It was hypothesised that the CI users would score lower than similarly-aged NH listeners on the ESPT.