Speech Evoked Auditory Brainstem Response in Children Who Had Undergone Cochlear Implantation Before 3 Years and After 5 Years of Age

Abstract

The brainstem is vital for speech comprehension and access to phonological information. The current study compared speech auditory brainstem response components across two CI groups of different implantation ages to understand the plasticity of brainstem with speech stimulation. Twenty CI participants were divided into two groups based on their age of implantation. The First group had ten participants with CI implanted before the age of 3 years and second group had ten participants CI implanted after the age of five years. Speech Evoked Auditory Brainstem Responses were elicited for each participant and template artifact removal technique was used for the removal of stimulus artifacts. Wave V latency revealed good replicability and was comparable between the two CI groups. Although the mean F0 amplitude value was lesser for children implanted with CI after the age of five years compared to the children implanted with CI before the age of three years, there was no statistically significant difference observed between the two groups. The F1 amplitude showed poor replicability for both the CI groups. This could be as a result of F1 amplitude being smaller in amplitude than the artifacts and being masked by them. The results concluded that brainstem is possibly more adaptable to the plasticity post CI for different age of implantation.