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Originally reserved for the profoundly deaf. cochlear implantation is now common for people with partial hearing loss. It has been found that, for many patients, combining cochlear implants with hearing aids enhances speech comprehension and sound quality better than electrical stimulation alone, particularly in noisy environments. However, very little is known about what causes these benefits, or why all patients don't receive a benefit.
The aim of this project is to address this knowledge gap by measuring the brain's response to sound and then assessing how this pattern relates to discrimination between different speech sounds - a vital aspect of hearing.
The results of this research will provide clinicians with the information they need to optimally program both the cochlear implant and hearing aid in combination treatments to enable better sound quality and speech perception. Providing the benefits of combined stimulation will give people with partial hearing the opportunity to participate fu lly in education, the workplace, and social situations where background noise is a problem. This will lead to better economic and health outcomes for partially deaf people.