Initial attempts to help profoundly deaf people understand speech by electrically stimulating the auditory nerve commenced in the 1950s and 1960s (Djourno & Eyrtes. 1957; Doyle. Doyle. &Turnbull. 1964; House. Berliner. Crary. Graham. Luckey. Norton. Selters. Tobin Urban & Wexler. 1976; Simmons. Monegeon. Lewis. & Huntington. 1964). The procedures were carried out on isolated patients. Raw or filtered speech was presented to the electrodes but no speech understanding was obtained.