Speech Intelligibility of Cochlear-Implanted and Normal-Hearing Children

INTRODUCTION: Speech intelligibility, the ability to be understood verbally by listeners, is the gold standard for assessing the effectiveness of cochlear implantation. Thus, the goal of this study was to compare the speech intelligibility between normal-hearing and cochlear-implanted children using the Persian intelligibility test. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Twenty-six cochlear-implanted children aged 48–95 months, who had been exposed to 95–100 speech therapy sessions, were compared with 40 normal-hearing children aged 48–84 months. The average post-implanted time was 14.53 months. Speech intelligibility was assessed using the Persian sentence speech intelligibility test. RESULTS: The mean score of the speech intelligibility test among cochlear-implanted children was 63.71% (standard deviation [SD], 1.06) compared with 100% intelligible among all normal-hearing children (P<0.000). No effects of age or gender on speech intelligibility were observed in these two groups at this range of ages (P>0.05). CONCLUSION: Speech intelligibility in the Persian language was poorer in cochlear-implanted children in comparison with normal-hearing children. The differences in speech intelligibility between cochlear-implanted and normal-hearing children can be shown through the Persian sentence speech intelligibility test.