Cochlear Implants

Severe hearing loss can affect a child’s development in many ways. That’s why cochlear implantation is a potentially life-changing procedure.

A cochlear implant is a device that surgeons implant to treat children with severe to profound hearing loss who get little or no benefit from hearing aids. Unlike a hearing aid, which delivers amplified sound to the cochlea or inner ear, the cochlear implant uses electrical signals to stimulate the hearing nerve directly. Coupled with an external microphone and computer processor, electrodes placed inside the inner ear stimulate the hearing nerve with a distinct code and the brain interprets these signals as sound. Cochlear implants help many children born deaf or who have become deaf to hear conversation and environmental sounds.

Nemours surgeons have performed hundreds of cochlear implants for children between the ages of 1 and17 who meet certain diagnostic criteria. But the implant procedure itself is just part of the process. Many patients must learn or relearn how to hear and how to speak – even those who were able to hear at some prior point in their lives. And, as with newborns, this takes time. Ongoing therapy and family involvement, both before and after surgery, are critical to a successful outcome.

This is what sets Nemours’ program apart from other medical centers that only offer the surgery to implant the device. Our program is designed with the goal of providing long-term support for patients and families. In addition, we offer families the convenience of having all the services associated with cochlear implantation all in one place.

Our comprehensive implant team is made up of specialists with expertise in the many different aspects of cochlear implantation. This team includes:

• surgeons and other physicians
• audiologists (specialists who diagnose, evaluate, and treat hearing loss)
• speech and language pathologists (specialists who diagnose, evaluate, and treat communication problems)
• behavioral health experts
• deaf educators
• a linguistic researcher (a specialist who studies language and speech sounds, formation, and structure)
• an auditory neurophysiologist (a specialist who studies how the nerves related to hearing work)

Working together, we coordinate all the necessary pieces, from pre-implant evaluations to surgical care to post-implant details related to the device itself (programming it to receive sound and training the child and family how to operate it) or to increasing your child’s speech and hearing skills. Our speech and language pathologists work one-on-one with children to teach or re-teach these skills. We can provide these services to children regardless of whether their primary language at home is English.

Our speech and language services for children with cochlear implants involve a program called auditory-verbal therapy. This unique program is delivered by certified therapists and follows a set of guiding principles that include an emphasis on early and consistent amplification, intense family participation, and therapy that focuses on developing speech through natural development patterns.

The methods used during therapy sessions are taught to parents, who will continue the training at home in their child's natural environment. The goal is to maximize the use of your child’s residual hearing in order to develop expressive speech that is melodic and natural. The program emphasizes the meaning and pragmatics of language, rather than articulation – which means language is shaped, or “caught,” rather than taught. The results are children who have natural-sounding speech and language, are excellent communicators, and are at a cognitive level commensurate with their hearing peers.

Our cochlear implant program takes every aspect of your child’s auditory, developmental, and social health into account. Our parents become experts on their child's hearing loss, and learn how to be their child's advocate in all settings. We are also committed to raising awareness about cochlear implantation within the general and medical communities.