Preliminary evaluation of computer-assisted home training for French cochlear implant recipients

For French cochlear implant (CI) recipients, in-person clinical auditory rehabilitation is typically provided during the first few years post-implantation. However, this is often inconvenient, it requires substantial time resources and can be problematic when appointments are unavailable. In response, we developed a computer-based home training software ("French AngelSound((TM))") for French CI recipients. We recently conducted a pilot study to evaluate the newly developed French AngelSound((TM)) in 15 CI recipients (5 unilateral, 5 bilateral, 5 bimodal). Outcome measures included phoneme recognition in quiet and sentence recognition in noise. Unilateral CI users were tested with the CI alone. Bilateral CI users were tested with each CI ear alone to determine the poorer ear to be trained, as well as with both ears (binaural performance). Bimodal CI users were tested with the CI ear alone, and with the contralateral hearing aid (binaural performance). Participants trained at home over a one-month period (10 hours total). Phonemic contrast training was used; the level of difficulty ranged from phoneme discrimination in quiet to phoneme identification in multi-talker babble. Unilateral and bimodal CI users trained with the CI alone; bilateral CI users trained with the poorer ear alone. Outcomes were measured before training (pre-training), immediately after training was completed (post-training), and one month after training was stopped (follow-up). For all participants, post-training CI-only vowel and consonant recognition scores significantly improved after phoneme training with the CI ear alone. For bilateral and bimodal CI users, binaural vowel and consonant recognition scores also significantly improved after training with a single CI ear. Follow-up measures showed that training benefits were largely retained. These preliminary data suggest that the phonemic contrast training in French AngelSound((TM)) may significantly benefit French CI recipients and may complement clinical auditory rehabilitation, especially when in-person visits are not possible.