Early speech recognition with a cochlear implant (CI) may be influenced in part by the mapping procedure used to assign the bandpass filters. This brief report compared the speech recognition of CI users with unilateral severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss (UHL) who were mapped with either a default or individualized, place-based mapping procedure.
✦ The floor
Discussion
Signed responses from readers of the wire.
Audiologists fitting cochlear implants in unilateral hearing loss patients should note this comparison of default vs. place-based mapping, but given this is a brief report with likely limited sample size, changes to mapping protocols are not yet justified without corroborating evidence.
As cochlear implantation for unilateral hearing loss grows, optimizing mapping strategies is directly relevant to audiologists fitting CIs and to manufacturers developing fitting software.
- 01Compared default vs. place-based (tonotopic) cochlear implant mapping in adults with unilateral hearing loss.
- 02Outcome measured was early speech recognition performance post-implantation.
- 03Published as a brief report, suggesting a smaller or preliminary dataset.
- 04Unilateral hearing loss (single-sided deafness) CI candidacy is a growing and evolving clinical area.
- 05Place-based mapping aligns electrode stimulation with the cochlea's natural frequency organization.
Place-based mapping procedures may differ from default mapping in early speech recognition outcomes for unilateral cochlear implant users.
studypartially supported- PMID
- 42784524
- DOI
- 10.1159/000552440.
- Journal
- Audiology and Neurotology
- Publication type
- research_article
- Evidence level
- 2b
- Population
- Adult cochlear implant users with unilateral hearing loss
- Intervention
- Place-based cochlear implant mapping procedure
- Comparator
- Default cochlear implant mapping procedure
Primary outcomes
Early speech recognition outcomes post cochlear implantation