Cochlear Implant Expertise
Typically, more than half of the CID school children have cochlear implants. This hearing technology is used increasingly with severely and profoundly deaf children. The implant consists of a series of electrodes surgically placed in the inner ear. An external processing device converts sounds into impulses delivered to these electrodes. The result, with appropriate training, is a child's improved ability to detect and distinguish among certain kinds of sounds, including speech sounds. This device has had a significant positive effect on the rate at which many deaf children –– particularly those who have early intensive auditory-oral education such as that offered at CID –– are learning to listen and to talk.
CID teachers and audiologists have had a great deal of experience and success in the education of deaf children with cochlear implants. Our school audiologists are experts in programming and troubleshooting cochlear implants and we have the equipment to program the devices for maximum benefit.
All of our teachers are experienced in developing listening skills for children with cochlear implants and for capitalizing on the implant as they teach deaf children to listen and talk. In the CID school, our on-site pediatric audiologists provide expert pre-implant evaluations of hearing, speech, language and cognitive ability for children being considered for a cochlear implant. They also offer expert cochlear implant programming. The CID school pediatric audiology and educational staff host deaf education workshops annually and give talks for other professionals serving deaf children with cochlear implants.
CID has led the way in the evaluation and use of cochlear implant technology for deaf children. In 1990 and 1996, CID researchers received multi-year grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study cochlear implants in children and to develop educational strategies and evaluation procedures. The work led to the development of the CID SPICE, an auditory training curriculum used throughout the world to help educate deaf children with cochlear implants.
CID coordinator of pediatric audiology Lisa Davidson, PhD, holds a faculty research appointment at Washington University School of Medicine and speaks often at professional conferences about the results of her recent landmark study and ongoing studies that are improving programming techniques and the impact of oral deaf education for children with cochlear implants.
CID's
catalog of deaf education assessment
tools and curricula
includes
the Speech Perception Instructional Curricula and Evaluation (SPICE), the
CID Early Speech Perception (ESP) test, which measures how well the cochlear implant or hearing aid
helps a deaf child hear speech. The ESP is being used in the education of deaf
children not only in the U.S. but throughout the world. The ESP has been
translated into six languages.
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