Children with Cochlear Implants Adjust As Well As Their Hearing Peers

Children with cochlear implants rate their quality of life as highly as children with normal hearing, according to one of the first studies that looked at children as well as their parents.

A team of American researchers asked 84 children with cochlear implants how they felt about themselves, their family lives, their friends and school. The questionnaires were completed at various summer camps designed for children with CIs in Texas and Colorado. Parents were questioned separately, and the responses were compared with those of a control group of 1,501 children the same ages, 8 to 16, with normal hearing. The paper appears in the Feb. 1 issue of Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery.

The lead author, Betty A. Loy, is quoted as saying the information would be useful to parents making decisions about cochlear implants for their babies. “They want to know: ‘Is my kid going to be made fun of? Is my kid going to be bullied? How is my kid going to feel about themselves with this apparatus on their head?’ ” said Dr. Loy, of the Dallas Cochlear Implant Program.

To read the full story in the New York Times, click here.

To read the study abstract, click here.