Late-life cochlear implants can succeed even in people deaf from birth

Evidence

For those deaf from birth, the issues are more complicated. It was thought that late-life cochlear implants would be ineffectual because of atrophy of neural sound processing ability, and this may often be true, but the author spoke to one 40-year-old recent implant recipient, deaf from birth, who understood him almost perfectly on a moving train. It is interesting that in spite of the high cost of the implant, a study by Johns Hopkins University showed that a three-year-old child who receives an implant can save much more in special-education costs for elementary and secondary schools. — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 1968

Categorization

• QUESTION: Why would a 40-year-old never-heard person parse speech almost perfectly while many post-lingually deafened adults report distorted sound? Contradicts the atrophy assumption and the plasticity story at once.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Eric J. Heller, Why You Hear What You Hear- An…, 1968
• XREF: connects to: Cross-modal brain plasticity from deafness variably helps or harms cochlear implant outcomes — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4274; Plastic changes during deafness can either help or hinder adaptation to a cochlear implant

Broader Connections

• Cross-modal brain plasticity from deafness variably helps or harms cochlear implant outcomes #complicates (0.80) — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 4274
• Plastic changes during deafness can either help or hinder adaptation to a cochlear implant #complicates (0.80)