Comparison of multichannel tactile aids and multichannel cochlear implants in children with profound hearing impairments.

Speech perception skills of prelingually deafened children who used the multichannel Tactaid 7 (n = 10) were compared to those of a matched group of children who used the Nucleus 22 channel cochlear implant (n = 10). Group scores were compared on a closed-set test of word recognition and on an open-set test of phrase recognition in the pre-device condition and at a post-device interval after an average of 1.5 years of multichannel device use. The results revealed that the scores of the implant users improved significantly between the pre- and post-device intervals on all measures. Moreover, the scores of the implant users were significantly higher than those of the tactile aid users on all measures. In contrast, the scores of the tactile aid users showed negligible change over time, except on a test that evaluated open-set recognition of phrases with both auditory and visual cues. The results suggest that children can learn to recognize words and understand speech without lipreading with a multichannel implant, whereas children who used the multichannel tactile aid demonstrate limited speech recognition skills only if auditory/tactile cues are combined with lipreading.