Musical Activities Benefit Children with Cochlear Implants
From: Medical Design Technology - 10/26/2015

Children using Cochlear Implants (CI) who participated in supervised musical
activities outside of the home were able to hear changes in voice pitch, and
to identify emphasis in spoken words and syllables (sentence and word stress)
as well as normal-hearing children, while other children using CIs found
these tasks much more difficult. Further, auditory working memory in children
using CIs showed improvements over time only in those children who
participated in musical activities.

It has been found previously that good perception of voice pitch and of
emphasis in spoken words and syllables are related to language skills. It is
also known that the perception of musical pitch and timbre is linked to the
perception of speech. Moreover, good auditory attention and auditory working
memory are important for perception, language skills and learning in general.

The results of the thesis indicate that the combination of singing at home
and taking part in supervised musical activities might be a powerful way to
optimize hearing for pitch, along with underlying cognitive functions, spoken
language skills, with a consequent improvement in quality of life for
children using CIs, and maybe also for the hearing-impaired children in
general.

Read the entire article at:
http://www.mdtmag.com/news/2015/10/musical-activities-benefit-children-cochlear-implants

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http://www.mdtmag.com/news/2015/08/double-cochlear-implants-improve-student-grades

Computer Program Predicts Cochlear Implant Success in Hearing-Impaired
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http://www.mdtmag.com/news/2015/10/computer-program-predicts-cochlear-implant-success-hearing-impaired-children