Graeme Clark Collection

Permanent URI for this collection

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 17
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Speech perception in implanted children: influence of preoperative residual hearing on outcomes [Abstract]
    Cowan, R. S. C. ; Barker, E. J. ; Pegg, P. ; Dettman, S. ; Rennie, M. ; Galvin, K. ; Meskin, T. ; Rance, G. ; Cody, K. ; Sarant, J. ; Larratt, M. ; Latus, K. ; HOLLOW, RODNEY ; Rehn, C. ; Dowell, R. C. ; Pyman, B. ; Gibson, W. P. R. ; Clark, Graeme M. ( 1998)
    Since the first child was implanted with the Nucleus 22-channel prosthesis in Melbourne in 1985, several thousand children world-wide have now benefitted from this technology. More effective paediatric assessment and management procedures have now been developed, allowing cochlear implants to be offered to children under the age of 2 years. Improvements in speech processing strategy have also been implemented in the Nucleus implant system, resulting in increased mean speech perception benefits for implanted adults. Although a range of performance on formal measures of hearing, speech or language has been reported for children using implants, results from the first decade of implant experience consistently show that significant benefits are available to children receiving their implant at an early age. Reported speech perception results for implanted children show that a considerable proportion (60%) of paediatric patients in the Melbourne and Sydney clinics are able to understand some open-set speech using electrical stimulation alone. These results, and the upward trend of mean speech perception benefits shown for postlinguistically deafened adults have raised questions as to whether severely, or severely-to-profoundly deaf children currently using hearing aids would in fact benefit more from a cochlear implant. To investigate the potential influence of the degree of preoperative residual hearing on postoperative speech perception, results for all implanted children in the Melbourne and Sydney cochlear implant programs were analysed. Results showed that as a group, children with higher levels of preoperative residual hearing were consistently more likely to achieve open-set speech perception benefits. Potential factors in this finding could be higher levels of ganglion cell survival or greater patterning of the auditory pathways using conventional hearing aids prior to implantation. Conversely, children with the least preoperative residual hearing were less predictable, with some children achieving open-set perception, and others showing more limited closed-set benefits to perception. For these children, it is likely that preoperative residual hearing is of less significance than other factors in outcomes.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    The progress of children using the multichannel cochlear implant in Melbourne
    Cowan, R. S. C. ; Dowell, R. C. ; Hollow, R. ; Dettman, S. J. ; Rance, G. ; Barker, E. J. ; Sarant, J. Z. ; Galvin, K. L. ; Webb, R. C. ; Pyman, B. C. ; Cousins, V. C. ; Clark, Graeme M. ( 1995)
    Multi-channel cochlear implantation in children began in Australia in 1985 and there are now close to 4000 profoundly deaf children and adolescents using the Australian implant system around the world. The aim of the implant procedure is to provide adequate hearing for speech and language development through auditory input. This contrasts with the situation for adults with acquired deafness where the cochlear implant aims to restore hearing for someone with well-developed auditory processing and language skills. As with adults, results vary over a wide range for children using the Multi-channel implant. Many factors have been suggested that may contribute to differences in speech perception for implanted children. In an attempt to better understand these factors, the speech perception results for children implanted in Melbourne were reviewed and subjected to statistical analysis. This has indicated that the amount of experience with the implant and the length of sensory deprivation are strongly correlated with perceptual results. This means that younger children are likely to perform better with an implant and that a number of years of experience are required for children to reach their full potential. The results have also indicated that educational placement and management play a crucial role in children reaching their potential. Overall, 60% of the children and adolescents in the study have reached a level of open-set speech understanding using the cochlear implant without lipreading.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Vowel imitation task: results over time for 28 cochlear implant children under the age of eight years
    Dettman, S. J. ; Barker, E. J. ; Dowell, R. C. ; Dawson, P. W. ; Blamey, P. J. ; Clark, Graeme M. ( 1995)
    With increasing numbers of implanted children under the age of 4 years, numerous researchers have reminded us of the need for valid, sensitive, and reliable tests of developing speech perception.1,2 In addition to studies of the efficacy of implanted prostheses, there is a need to investigate the many variables that influence children's communicative performance, such as changes in speech-coding strategy, updated speech-processing systems, the effects of various training regimens, and the selection of educational and communication modes.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Results for children and adolescents using the multichannel cochlear prosthesis [Abstract]
    Dowell, Richard C. ; Clark, Graeme M. ; Dettman, Shani J. ; Dawson, Pamela W. ( 1992)
    The first adolescent to use the 22-electrode cochlear prosthesis was Implanted In Melbourne in 1985 and the first child (less than 10 years), the following year. Since then, over 100 children have received the cochlear prosthesis in Australia and over 1200 worldwide. Detailed assessment of 200 children in the U.S.A., Australia and Germany lead to the market approval of the prosthesis by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in July 1990. The analysis of results for these children has proven to be difficult due to the use of different tests in different places, the lack of appropriate assessment tools for young children, the wide range of performance, and the problems of cooperation for young children. Despite these problems, some trends are beginning to emerge in the speech perception results for implanted children. Children with a greater amount of auditory experience before becoming profoundly deaf tend to perform better, as do children with more experience with the cochlear prosthesis. Those with a greater number of electrodes in use also perform better, a result supported by adult studies. Although older prelinguistically deafened children do not perform as well as postlinguistically deafened adults, there appears to be little difference between results for pre-and post-linguistically deafened young children. These trends In speech perception results will be discussed in more detail.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Cochlear implants in children, adolescents, and prelinguistically deafened adults: speech perception
    Dawson, Pam. W ; Blamey, Peter J. ; Rowland, Louise C. ; Dettman, Shani J. ; Clark, Graeme M. ; Busby, Peter A. ; Brown, Alison M. ; Dowell, Richard C. ; Rickards, Field W. ( 1992)
    A group of 10 children, adolescents, and prelinguistically deafened adults were implanted with the 22-electrode cochlear implant (Cochlear Pty Ltd) at the University of Melbourne Cochlear Implant Clinic and have used the prosthesis for periods from 12 to 65 months. Postoperative performance on the majority of closed-set speech perception tests was significantly greater than chance, and significantly better than preoperative performance for all of the patients. Five of the children have achieved substantial scores on open-set speech tests using hearing without lipreading. Phoneme scores in monosyllabic words ranged from 30% to 72%; word scores in sentences ranged from 26% to 74%. Four of these 5 children were implanted during preadolescence (aged 5:5 to 10:2 years) and the fifth, who had a progressive loss, was implanted during adolescence (aged 14:8 years). The duration of profound deafness before implantation varied from 2 to 8 years. Improvements were also noted over postoperative data collection times for the younger children. The remaining 5 patients who did not demonstrate open-set recognition were implanted after a longer duration of profound deafness (aged 13:11 to 20:1 years). The results are discussed with reference to variables that may affect implant performance, such as age at onset of loss, duration of profound loss, age at implantation, and duration of implantation. They are compared with results for similar groups of children using hearing aids and cochlear implants.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Cochlear implants in children, adolescents, and prelinguistically deafened adults: speech perception
    Dawson, Pam W. ; Blamey, Peter J. ; Rowland, Louise C. ; Dettman, Shani J. ; Clark, Graeme M. ; Busby, Peter A. ; Brown, Alison M. ; Dowell, Richard C. ; Rickards, Field W. ( 1992)
    A group of 10 children, adolescents, and prelinguistically deafened adults were implanted with the 22-electrode cochlear implant (Cochlear Ply Ltd) at the University of Melbourne Cochlear Implant Clinic and have used the prosthesis for periods from 12 to 65 months. Postoperative performance on the majority of closed-set speech perception tests was significantly greater than chance, and significantly better than preoperative performance for all of the patients. Five of the children have achieved substantial scores on open-set speech tests using hearing without lipreading. Phoneme scores in monosyllabic words ranged from 30% to 72%; word scores in sentences ranged from 26% to 74%. Four of these 5 children were implanted during preadolescence (aged 5:5 to 10:2 years) and the fifth, who had a progressive loss, was implanted during adolescence (aged 14:8 years). The duration of profound deafness before implantation varied from 2 to 8 years. Improvements were also noted over postoperative data collection times for the younger children. The remaining 5 patients who did not demonstrate open-set recognition were implanted after a longer duration of profound deafness (aged 13:11to 20:1 years). The results are discussed with reference to variables that may affect implant performance, such as age at onset of loss, duration of profound loss, age at implantation, and duration of implantation. They are compared with results for similar groups of children using hearing aids and cochlear implants.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Preliminary speech perception results for children with the 22-electrode Melbourne/ cochlear hearing prosthesis
    Cowan, R. S. C. ; Dowell, R. C. ; Pyman, B. C. ; Dettman, S. J. ; Dawson, P. W. ; Rance, G. ; Barker, E. J. ; Sarant, J. Z. ; Clark, Graeme M. ( 1993)
    The 22-electroce cochlear prosthesis developed by the University of Melbourne and Cochlear Pty. Ltd. has been shown to provide significant speech perception benefits to profoundly deafened adults. More recently, use of an improved Multipeak encoding strategy has significantly improved speech perception performance both in quiet and in noise. Benefits to speech perception in children have not as yet been fully documented, in part due to the shorter history of implant use in children and the smaller overall number of children implanted as compared with adults. The first implantation of the 22-electrode cochlear prosthesis in a child was carried out in Melbourne in January of 1985. In Melbourne, a 5-year-old child was operated on in April 1986, and a first congenitally deaf child in April 1987. The age of implantation has been progressively reduced, with the first 2-year-old child implanted in Melbourne in 1990. As at January 1992, approximately 1,200 children (under 18 years of age inclusive) have been implanted worldwide with the 22-electrode cochlear prosthesis. Of this number, approximately 50% are under the age of 6 years. The age of the child, aetiology of the hearing loss, age at onset and duration of the hearing loss, education program attended both prior to and subsequent to implantation, and parental motivation to assist in habilitation are all factors which may affect an individual child's development and progress with the device. Evaluation of performance in children is complicated by a number of issues, including the effects of delayed speech and language development, and the ability of individual children to perform auditory tests. The measure of performance chosen for any evaluation will also reflect the interests of the particular clinician. For example, effects of device use on speech production may be of interest to the speech therapist, whereas educational progress will be of primary importance to the teacher of an implanted child. However, in choosing an appropriate evaluation test to measure progress woth the cochlear prosthesis, it is vital to realize that all measures such as effects of device use on speech production, educational progress, development of language, and effects on social and communication skills depend on the child being able to accurately perceive speech information through her/his device.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Speech perception results in children using the 22-electrode cochlear implant [Abstract]
    Dawson, P. W. ; Blamey, P. J. ; Rowland, L.C. ; Dettman, S. J. ; Altidis, P. M. ; Clark, Graeme M. ; Busby, P. A. ; Brown, A. M. ; Dowell, R. C. ; Rickards, F. W. ( 1990)
    Twenty-one profoundly hearing impaired children ranging in age from 3 to 20 years have been implanted with the 22-electrode cochlear implant (Cochlear Pty ltd) at the University of Melbourne Cochlear Implant Clinic. Five children (aged 6.0 to 14.8 years) have achieved substantial scores on open set speech tests using hearing without lipreading. Phoneme scores in monosyllabic words ranged from 30% to 72%. Word scores in sentences ranged from 26% to 74%. Four of these five children were implanted during preadolescence and the fifth who had a progressive loss, was implanted during adolescence. Eight children (aged 3.0 to 11 years), have either been implanted recently or are too young for detailed assessments. However some have shown using closed set speech perception tests or vowel imitation tasks, that they are beginning to use the auditory input provided by the implant. The remaining children (aged 13.11 to 20.1 years) have not demonstrated open set recognition but are all full time users of the device. This group was implanted during adolescence after a long duration of profound deafness. The results will be discussed with reference to a number of variables which may contribute to successful implant use; such as age of onset of deafness, duration of deafness. age of implantation, educational program and type of training.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Speech perception in implanted children: effects of speech processing strategy and residual hearing
    Meskin, T. ; Rance, G. ; Cody, K. ; Sarant, J. ; Larratt, M. ; Latus, K. ; Hollow, R. ; Rehn, C. ; Dowell, R.C. ; Pyman, B. ; Gibson, W.P.R. ; Clark, Graeme M. ; Cowan, Robert S. C. ; Barker, E. J. ; Pegg, P. ; Dettman, S. ; Rennie, M. ; Galvin, K. (Mendoza Editor, 1997)
    The ability of implanted children to adapt to different speech processing strategies has been demonstrated for the Nucleus implant system. Children previously experienced with the Multipeak speech processing strategy. were able to gain significant improvements in consonant, word and sentence perception using the Speak speech processing strategy. suggesting some degree of neural plasticity in neural-auditory coding. Of 192 implanted children with different degrees of preoperative residual hearing, 65% were found to obtain significant scores on open-set speech materials using electrical stimulation alone. Those children with more residual hearing had a greater probability of achieving open-set understanding and at a minimum level, perceived high frequency consonant information which would not have been available through conventional hearing aids.
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Speech perception in implanted children: effects of preoperative residual hearing and speech processing strategy [Abstract]
    Meskin, T. ; Rance, G. ; Cody, K. ; Sarant, J. ; Larratt, M. ; Latus, K. ; HOLLOW, RODNEY ; Rehn, C. ; Dowell, R.C. ; Pyman, B. ; Gibson, W.P.R. ; Clark, Graeme M. ; Cowan, Robert S. C. ; Barker, E. J. ; Pegg, P. ; Dettman, S. ; Rennie, M. ; Galvin, K. ( 1997)
    Since the first child was implanted with the Nucleus 22-channel cochlear prosthesis in Melbourne in 1985, the number of implanted children world-wide has rapidly expanded. Over this period, more effective paediatric assessment and management procedures have developed, allowing cochlear implants to be offered to children under the age of 2 years. In addition, a succession of improved speech processing strategies have been implemented in the Nucleus implant system, resulting in increased mean speech perception benefits for implanted adults. Research in the Melbourne and Sydney Cochlear Implant Clinics has also demonstrated that young children can adapt to and benefit from improved speech processing strategies such as the Speak strategy. Reported speech perception results for implanted children show that a considerable proportion (60%) of paediatric patients in the Melbourne and Sydney clinics are able to understand some open set speech using electrical stimulation alone. These results, and the upward trend of speech perception benefits to improve over time with advances in speech processing. have raised questions as to whether severely, or severely-to-profoundly deaf children currently using hearing aids would in fact benefit more from a cochlear implant. To investigate the potential effect of the level of preoperative residual hearing on postoperative speech perception. results for all implanted children in the Melbourne and Sydney cochlear implant programs were analysed. Results showed that as 8 group, children with higher levels of preoperative residual hearing were consistently more likely to achieve open-set speech perception benefits. Potential factors in this finding could be higher levels of ganglion cell survival or greater patterning of the auditory pathways using conventional hearing aids prior to implantation. Conversely, children with the least preoperative residual hearing were less predictable, with some children achieving open-set perception, and others showing more limited closed-set benefits to perception. For these children, it is likely that preoperative residual hearing is of less significance than other factors in outcomes.