ACTA OTO-LARYNGOL. 91/3-4 (1981) 173-175
Abstract
Multiple-channel electrical stimulation of the hearing nerve in conjunction with speech-reading has helped two post-lingually deaf patients with total hearing losses understand running speech in every day situations. This has been confirmed using open-set phonetically balanced word tests, where the patients achieved 60% and 40% scores with isolated-words, and 80% and 73% for phonemes-in-isolated words. The tests also showed that the cochlear implant improved word recognition by a factor of four in one patient and two in another, compared with speech-reading alone. The speech processor used, extracted the voicing frequency and energy, and the frequency and energy of the dominant spectral peak in the mid-frequency range. The parameters for voicing determined the rate of stimulation for all electrodes, and the parameters for the dominant spectral peak in the mid-frequency range determined the site of electrode stimulation and current level.