Graeme Clark Collection

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    The effect of language knowledge on speech perception in children with impaired hearing
    Sarant, J. Z. ; Blamey, P. J. ; Clark, Graeme M. ( 1996)
    Open-set words and sentences were used to assess auditory speech perception of three hearing-impaired children aged 9 to 15 years using the Nucleus 22channel cochlear implant. Vocabulary and syntax used in the tests were assessed following the initial perception tests. Remediation was given in specific vocabulary and syntactic areas, chosen separately for each child, and the children were reassessed. Two children showed a significant post-remediation improvement in their overall scores on the syntactic test and both perception measures. The third child who was older, had the best language knowledge and the lowest auditory speech perception scores, showed no significant change on any of the measures. Language remediation in specific areas of weakness may be the quickest way to enhance speech perception for some children with impaired hearing in this age range.
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    Multicenter evaluations of speech perception in adults and children with the nucleus (cochlear) 22-channel cochlear implant
    Clark, Graeme M. ; Dowell, Richard C. ; Cowan, Robert S. ; Pyman, Brian C. ; Webb, Robert L. (Kugler, 1996)
    The Nucleus 22-channel cochlear implant has been implanted in over 10,500 patients in 79 countries. and used for more than 25 languages. It arose as a result of our early physiological, behavioral and biological research on experimental animals. The historical development of the Nucleus device has been outlined in detail by Clark. Our ongoing research has led to improvements in the way speech is processed with the 22-channel device that are now resulting in improved speech perception for profoundly totally deaf people that is, on average, better than the speech perception obtained by many deaf people with hearing aids. The multiple-channel cochlear implant was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in postlinguistically deaf adults in 1985. It was subsequently approved for use in children in 1990. The proportion of children (18 years of age and under) to have now received it is approximately 439C (4,500 out of 10.500). In evaluating improvements in speech processing it is important to design well-controlled studies, and a number of important ones which have previously been published are summarized in this paper. In addition, speech perception results for all the Nucleus speech processing strategies have been obtained four to six months postoperatively from unselected patients presenting to the Cochlear Implant Clinic at the Royal Victorian Eye & Ear Hospital (RVEEH), Melbourne, and are presented in this paper. As results can vary greatly with different durations of experience it is essential to make comparisons at the same time postoperatively. These clinical data are the most complete to date for comparing the Nucleus speech processing strategies.