Cochlear implants and speech skills following meningitis

11 October 2006

Children who have cochlear implants fitted after being deafened by meningitis show remarkable progress in developing speech skills, according to a five-year study.

Most (96%) could understand common phrases without lip-reading and 73% could understand conversation without lip-reading three years after implantation three years after implantation, whereas none of them could do so before implantation.

Whilst the children's speech was certainly improved following cochlear implantation, only 39% of the children developed very good speech skills within five years of the implant, suggesting that cochlear implantation has certain limitations or that the time period is not long enough for the children to reach their potential in this area.

Hearing loss is the most common long-term after effect of meningitis, affecting up to one quarter of survivors, and meningitis is the biggest cause of acquired deafness in children.

The study, led by Dr Thomas Nikolopoulos, investigated long-term progress in speech skills of young children who were deafened by meningitis. These children lost their hearing very early in life, before they had learned to speak, and are so profoundly deaf that conventional hearing aids are of no use. All of them have surgically inserted cochlear implants which bypass the damaged organ of hearing (the cochlea) and directly stimulate the auditory nerve, producing a sensation of hearing.

Taking place at Queens Medical Centre, Nottingham, which has the largest children's cochlear implant centre in the UK, the project compared long-term outcomes for these children in developing spoken language abilities to the same outcomes in implanted children who were born deaf.

Source: Meningitis Research Foundation
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