The long-term goal of the proposed study is to develop assessment and training strategies that maximize speech recognition in adults and children fitted with a cochlear implant (Cl). This study will focus on adult Cl users with lower than average (poor) speech recognition skills. It will capitalize on the benefits of a combined behavioral and neurophysiological approach to characterize psychophysical and speech recognition skills and construct individualized training strategies.
The specific aims are to (1) evaluate the benefit of intensive psychophysical training; (2) evaluate the benefit of intensive speech recognition training; and (3) evaluate the correlations between the neurophysiological and psychophysical responses, and speech recognition. The significance of the proposed experiments is the demonstration that in poor (i.e., below average speech recognition) adult Cl users, basic psychophysical and speech recognition skills can be improved significantly by intensive training. Previous attempts to improve the speech recognition abilities of poor to moderate implant users have shown, at best, only minimal success. However, these attempts have been extremely limited in the amount of training provided. More intensive training programs may result in larger, more consistent improvements in speech recognition. Clinically, neurophysiological responses such as auditory evoked potentials may provide important information that can be used to guide and monitor individualized training programs. Theoretically, these results will increase our understanding of central auditory system plasticity and the cortical processes and mechanisms involved in perceptual learning.
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