Kirk, K. , Firszt, J. , Hood, L. & Holt, R. (2006, November 28) The ASHA Leader.
Multichannel cochlear implants (CIs) were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1990 for use in children with profound hearing loss ages 2-17 years (Clark, 2000). Because early CI systems yielded relatively modest levels of open-set speech understanding (Staller et al., 1991), clinicians were understandably conservative in determining CI candidacy. Since then, advances in the design of CI systems have yielded substantial improvements in outcomes and a concomitant broadening of candidacy criteria.