Training of Speech Perception in Noise in Pre-Lingual Hearing Impaired Adults with Cochlear Implants Compared with Normal Hearing Adults

Background: Speech perception in noise remains a significant challenge for cochlear implant (CI) users in everyday life. It has been argued that training to use the information provided by the CI is as important as technological advances. So far, however, only few studies have trained speech perception in noise, most (if not all) included postlingually deafened CI adult users using non-sentence training material. Objective: To assess the effect of training on a speech perception in noise task in prelingually hearing-impaired CI users with years of CI experience, as compared with normal-hearing (NH) young adults, following single- and multi-session training using the same training protocol. Methods: Participants included 22 CI users with prelingual hearing loss and 30 NH. The Hebrew version of the Matrix sentence-in-noise test was used for training. All participants took part in a single training session. Six NH and seven CI continued training for four additional training sessions. All seven CI users trained for additional 5 days, totaling 10 training sessions. Generalization and retention of learning gains were assessed. Results: Following single-session training, CI users showed speech reception thresholds in noise (SRTn) that were 9 to 10 dB higher than NH. After 5 first days of training, five of seven CI users reduced this disadvantage by half. After 10 days of training the CI improved performance by 4.1 dB SNR. No generalization and partial retention of learning were demonstrated. Conclusions: The present study is the first to demonstrate the course of learning and improvements in SRTn following training speech perception in noise in CI users with prelingual hearing loss.