Use of comb-filtered speech to demonstrate to parents how children adapt to hearing with an implant.

Parents' knowledge of cochlear implantation (CI) is very limited. How could we graphically demonstrate the problems faced by implanted children to their parents?Parallels between speech perception of implanted patients and speech perception after comb filtration by normal hearing persons mean that it is possible to evaluate self-training of inexperienced subjects to perceive spectrally deprived speech and to show the complexities of implanted children's acoustic perception to the children's relatives. Speech consisted of five bands of the 50 Hz width in the frequency range of 200 to 6250 Hz. Eight mothers had to repeat words from two word lists. After seven to nine days of examination, all subjects achieved a plateau of intelligibility. The mean values of intelligibility in the first and the last tests were 32% and 84% respectively. There was no significant difference between the final result of self-training and the result of control list intelligibility (p > 0.05). The results obtained on the last day of the experiment confirm the successful development of perception of a new sound picture of speech. These results demonstrated to the mothers that high intelligibility achieved by them in the two repeated lists, was strengthened, by analogy with their children, as a new skill. The mothers of the children who received implants appreciated the demonstration and recommended that all mothers take part in assessments use this.