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Absolute pitch (AP) is the ability to name a note without any reference, since relative pitch (RP) needs for a previous and known tone to be able of such a recognition. We suggest that AP is due to both environmental features and physiological particularity. From the responses of 263 musicians including 169 AP we observed that for AP musical environment in childhood was better, and younger the age of instrumental beginning than for RP. The study of otoacustic emissions evoked by a supraliminar stimulation in 183 musicians ears including 68 AP showed that the echo was significantly greater in case of AP than in case of RP.

Response parameters relating to the stimulus (click or filtrated bursts), the patient's age and audition curve (physiological presbyacusis) were derived from 3158 provoked otoemission (POE) recordings obtained in normal subjects. Current limits imposed by the device used constitute a factor restricting indications for such devices to the screening of loss hearing in the young child, obviously, but also to the investigation of certain paucisymptomatic hearing disorders presenting with normal or subnormal pure tome audiograms.

From June, 1987, to January, 1900, 19 patients aged 3 to 56 years have been rehabilitated for total deafness occurring prior to the acquisition of speech, ie. before age 2, whatever its cause. Some degree of hearing was achieved in all cases. However, the rate and steadiness of progress in auditory recognition, the daily period of use of the device and the changes in the behavior were inversely proportional to the patient's age. This leads to proposing cochlear implants for all patients, especially children, and all the more largely as they are young.