Selection Criteria – Children (0 – 17 years)

Selection Criteria

1. Baseline Audiometric Criteria

Full audiological test results should be available, these must have been obtained within the last 6 months.

Full and current audiological assessment which includes:

• Tympanometry and acoustic reflexes ipsi and contralateral
• Otoacoustic emissions
• Auditory evoked potential traces – ABR 500Hz, 2000Hz tone burst and click (condensation and
rarefaction) or SSEP
• Age appropriate audiogram – soundfield or insert phone and bone conduction in dB HL across the 250-8000Hz frequency range.
• Multiple unaided audiograms required, on at least a monthly basis if the loss is progressive or fluctuating
• Speech tests if age appropriate

Minimum requirement

Hearing loss should be severe to profound from 1 Khz to 8khz – unaided test.

2. Hearing Aids

The candidate should have worn carefully selected and well fitted hearing aids on a daily basis for at least three months, except in special circumstances.

3. Hearing Aid Verification

The candidate’s bilateral hearing loss should be such that optimum binaural aided thresholds at 3000Hz and 4000Hz fall outside the long term average speech spectrum (University of Western Ontario – UWO LTASS)

4. Speech perception ages 4 – 17 years

On age appropriate speech perception testing pre and post lingually deafened children should demonstrate limited benefit from optimally fitted hearing aids.

5. Radiology

The child must have had appropriate radiography. Any physical impediment to the placing of the electrode array in the cochlea or the receiver/ stimulator in the mastoid must have been evaluated and the implications accepted by everyone involved. MRI scanning may be required when there is concern about post meningitic cochlear ossification or neurological damage. CT and MRIscanning may require a general anaesthetic.

6. Other Disabilities

Children with additional disabilities will be considered for implant candidacy if the degree of disability is not a contraindication for successful MAPping, habilitation or general use of a cochlear implant. Expected outcomes for these for these children will vary depending on the severity of the disability.

7. Habilitation

Families and children will be required to participate in the establishment, implementation and (re) evaluation of the Pre and Post Implantation Habilitation Plan. Before implantation, the child should be enrolled in the programme outlined in the Habilitation Plan. There needs to be long-term post-operative local support available to the family for the habilitation to be effectively carried out.

8. Medical / Surgical

Medical / surgical investigations by SCIP surgeon have established that there are no contra-indications to cochlear implant surgery.

9. Psychology / Counselling Report

A psychologist or counsellor will have conducted an evaluation.