Objective:To evaluated the aural rehabilitation development of the bimodal stimulation in deaf infants with a unilateral cochlear implant. Method:The 36 infants, suffering from severe-to-profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss with residual hearing on at least one side, assigned into two groups randomly:18 wore only the cochlear implant(unilateral A group),while the other 18 used the CI and a contralateral hearing aid at the same time(bimodal group).The aural rehabilitation development was evaluated by sound field test and speech rehabilitation tests(including vowels, consonants, tones, monosyllables, disyllables, tri-syllables and selected hearing) after rehabilitation lasting 3 month(T1),6 month(T2)and 12 month(T3)respectively. Result:At time T1，free-field hearing threshold of 500 Hz of unilateral A group was statistically higher than bimodal group. Free-field hearing thresholds of 500 Hz and 1 000 Hz of unilateral A group were statistically higher than bimodal group attime T2（P<0.05）.At time T1, vowels, consonants, tones ,monosyllables, and disyllables rehabilitation scores of unilateral A group were statistically higher than bimodal group（P<0.05）.At time T2,there were no statistically significant differences between two groups（P>0.05）.However,consonants, tones,disyllables, tri-syllables and selected hearing rehabilitation scores of bimodal group were statistically higher than unilateral group（P<0.05）. Conclusion:The cochlear implant infants with bimodal stimulation have better aural rehabilitation development with the process of aural rehabilitation gradually.Therefore, it is essential to make full use of the advantages of binaural hearing and to choose the appropriate aural rehabilitation mode for every deaf infant.
Keywords: auditory rehabilitation; bimodal stimulations; cochlear implantation; deafness.
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