Careful follow-up during early childhood of children with Turner syndrome is necessary to detect middle ear disease and prevent sequelae. However, long-term periodic review is mandatory even after resolution of middle ear disease to detect sensorineural hearing loss.

No abstract

Bilateral profound hearing loss after superficial siderosis of the brain is no absolute contraindication for implantation. Furthermore, evoked auditory brainstem measurements can potentially guide the fitting process of the implant in difficult cases.

The purpose of this study was to determine and to compare the overall intelligibility, articulation, resonance, and voice characteristics in children using cochlear implants (CI) and children using conventional hearing aids (HA). Nine prelingually deaf children using CI and six children with a prelingual severe hearing loss using HA, were selected to participate. Objective (DSI, nasalance scores) as well as subjective assessment techniques (perceptual evaluations) were used. Both the CI and HA children demonstrated normal vocal quality and resonance but showed the presence of articulation disorders. In the CI children, intelligibility was significantly better compared to the HA children. Significantly more phonetic and phonological disorders were present in the HA children. The results of this study show a poorer intelligibility of the HA children in comparison with the CI children which is probably due to the occurrence of significantly more phonetic and phonological disorders. Future detailed analysis in a larger sample of CI and HA children may help further clarify the issue of speech and voice characteristics and may demonstrate an important prognostic value.

The main objective of this study was to assess the associations between self-reported listening habits and perception of music and speech perception outcomes in quiet and noise for both unilateral cochlear implant (CI) users and bimodal (CI in one ear, hearing aid in contra-lateral ear) users. Information concerning music appreciation was gathered by means of a newly developed questionnaire. Moreover, audiological data (pure-tone audiometry, speech tests in noise and quiet) were gathered and the relationship between speech perception and music appreciation is studied. Bimodal users enjoy listening to music more in comparison with unilateral CI users. Also, music training within rehabilitation is still uncommon, while CI recipients believe that music training might be helpful to maximize their potential with current CI technology. Music training should not be exclusively reserved for the good speech performers. Therefore, a music training program (MTP) that consists of different difficulty levels should be developed. Hopefully, early implementation of MTP in rehabilitation programs can enable adult CI users to enjoy and appreciate music and to maximize their potential with commercially available technology. Furthermore, because bimodal users consider the bimodal stimulation to be the most enjoyable way to listen to music, CI users with residual hearing in the contra-lateral ear should be encouraged to continue wearing their hearing aid in that ear.