Speech Understanding in Noise for Adults With Cochlear Implants: Effects of Hearing Configuration, Source Location Certainty, and Head Movement

Conclusions Bilateral CI users overcame ear and source location effects observed for the bimodal listeners. Bilateral CI users have access to head shadow on both sides, whereas bimodal listeners generally have interaural asymmetry in both speech understanding and audible bandwidth limiting the head shadow benefit obtained from the poorer ear (generally the nonimplanted ear). In summary, we found that, in conditions with source location uncertainty and increased ecological validity, bilateral CI performance was superior to bimodal listening.
Source: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research - Category: Speech-Language Pathology Source Type: research