This project will investigate the impact of cochlear implant encoding strategies and specific components of aural rehabilitation on everyday communication functioning of post-lingually deaf adults using multichannel cochlear implants. The proposed research will attempt to provide social validation of perceived benefits from varying speech coding strategies, outcomes of cochlear implant use and training efficacy. Self-report measures, daily logs of communication interactions and difficulties, and reports from the cochlear implant user's significant other will provide data on communication performance and personal adjustment to hearing loss as subjects experience and adjust to different speech coding strategies. Performance in communication interactions and perception and enjoyment of meaningful environmental stimuli, such as music, will be assessed longitudinally in the context of a within-subject design. Additionally, this project will evaluate the relative contribution of systematic drill on auditory and visual stimuli in an intensive AR program to everyday communication functioning. Once a preferred cochlear implant speech coding strategy has been selected for the individual, subjects will be assigned to a program of AR that consists of either a problem-solving counseling approach, or a combination of counseling and audiovisual perceptual training. Performance gains on speech recognition tasks, consonant similarity ratings, self-report measures, and perception of meaningful environmental stimuli will be compared for the two AR groups immediately following intervention and at a three-month follow-up period.
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