OUTCOME OF AUDITORY PERFORMANCE AND SPEECH INTELLIGIBILITY IN PAEDIATRIC COCHLEAR IMPLANT SURGERY IN A TERTIARY CENTRE

Abstract

Objective: To analyse the relation between the age of implantation with the Category of Auditory Performance (CAP) and Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR) rehabilitation score after one year of cochlear implantation surgery.

Materials and method: This is a retrospective study of the patients who had undergone cochlear implant surgery at a tertiary referral centre in the last six years. After the cochlear implantation all the patients had undergone compulsory Auditory Verbal Therapy (AVT) for one year. The postoperative evaluation tool used were CAP and SIR score for the audiological and speech outcomes. The patients were divided into two groups of age, one to four years (group A) and another group of four to eight years of age (group B). The CAP and SIR scores after one year of auditory verbal habilitation were recorded and compared in the two groups.

Results: The outcome of total thirty-four patients within eight years of age who had undergone cochlear implant surgery were analysed. There were eighteen patients in group A and sixteen patients in group B. There were 64.7% males and 35.3% females among the patients analysed. In group A, the maximum number of patients reached CAP score of 5 and two patients reached a score of 7. Similarly, maximum number of patients reached SIR score of 3 followed by 4 in group A patients. Compared to this the CAP score in group B patients were between 3 to 5 with two patients reaching score 6. The SIR score reached in group B was 2 and 3. On comparison of the CAP and SIR scores between the two groups, the CAP score was not significant (p=0.12) but the SIR score was significant (p=0.00).

Conclusion: The CAP score difference in the two groups was not significant but the SIR score showed significant difference on evaluating the outcomes after one year of AVT.

Keywords: CAP, Cochlear Implantation, Implantees, SIR scores