Cochlear Implants

Children and adults who are deaf or severely hard-of-hearing can be fitted for cochlear implants. As of December 2019, approximately 736,900 registered devices have been implanted worldwide. In the United States, roughly 118,100 devices have been implanted in adults and 65,000 in children. (Estimates provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration [FDA], as reported by cochlear implant manufacturers approved for the U.S. market.)

The FDA first approved cochlear implants in the mid-1980s to treat hearing loss in adults. Since 2020, cochlear implants have been FDA approved for use in eligible children beginning at 9 months of age. For young children who are deaf or severely hard-of-hearing, using a cochlear implant while they are young exposes them to sounds during an optimal period to develop speech and language skills. Research has shown that when children receive a cochlear implant early in life followed by intensive therapy, they often are better able to hear, comprehend sound and music, and speak than their peers who receive implants when they are older. Studies have also shown that eligible children (as young as 9 months of age) who receive a cochlear implant early may develop language skills at a rate comparable to children with normal hearing, and many succeed in mainstream classrooms.

Some adults who have lost all or most of their hearing later in life can also benefit from cochlear implants. They learn to associate the signals from the implant with sounds they remember, including speech, without requiring any visual cues such as those provided by lipreading or sign language.

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