Who can be helped by a cochlear implant?

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HealthWiki > Helping Children Who Are Deaf > Appendix B: Cochlear implants and hearing > Who can be helped by a cochlear implant?

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In this chapter:

 

In this chapter:

Cochlear implants are helpful only to people who are completely deaf or have very little hearing even with a hearing aid. In some countries, babies as young as 6 months can get cochlear implants. In other places they must be 1 to 2 years old. Cochlear implants do not help people who already have some hearing.

Effect of cochlear implants on hearing

Cochlear implants can help people with severe hearing loss hear sounds, understand speech, and have a better quality of life. And they do not make someone’s hearing the same as a person without hearing loss. Even when cochlear implants work well, hearing through an implant will sound different from “typical” hearing.

After a person receives a cochlear implant, it is adjusted over time to meet their needs. The person must also “train” their brain (with support from health workers) to understand the information it receives from the implant. This takes time and practice, and helps people with implants to recognize sounds, understand speech, and have conversations with others.

This child with a cochlear implant can hear the voices of her family members. She has to learn the difference between each person's voice.

Who's talking now, Nami?

The results of a cochlear implant can be very different for each person. This depends on the cause of someone’s hearing loss, how old they are when they get an implant, how much hearing and speech they had before, how frequently they wear their implant, and whether they get good training after getting an implant.

Most children who have a cochlear implant, use it frequently (wearing the external part all the time when awake), and who have good, consistent training will hear loud and quiet sounds and be able to tell the difference between people’s voices. Some will also learn to speak. Others may still have difficulty hearing and learning to talk.