Pre Cochlear Implant (re)habilitation during the first year of life - Make the difference ‪!‬

Universal neonatal hearing screening programs and cochlear implants have changed completely the communicative prognosis for congenitally deaf children. Early intervention and a correct use of technology allow the activation of a near-normal hearing and development of  the auditory connectome, due to the plasticity of the brain.

We hold that an important clinical issue has to date not been looked into enough, and we are referring to what to do between the identification of deafness and surgery, during the first year of life, when the brain shows the   maximum plasticity.

Two strategies can be followed: 

-you may only aim at confirming the diagnosis and candidacy for CI, or

- you may couple the fitting of technology with a strong and structured training programme.

What to do with a congenital deaf child in the first year of life before the CI surgery will be the topic of the round table.

The panel is divided into four chapters in order to discuss and share the authors’ experiences as far as possible.

The first chapter will describe some basic issues both about organization and clinical aspects. In particular, the effects of early stimulation in a developing brain will be presented.

The second chapter  will mainly focus on diagnostic tools and describe how to make a correct and complete diagnosis, i.e. getting beyond the classical click-evoked ABR.

The third chapter will be dedicated to the pre-surgery technology, and we’ll try not to give just general information about hearing aids or other devices, and to describe  precisely how to check their performances and measure the child’s outcomes.

Finally in the last chapter, the panelists will describe how to organize and what to do during the  training  sessions, in a global perspective that includes how to fit technology  but also how to build a communicative and cognitive rehabilitation