cochlear implant rehabilitation (Nathan Weisz )

Subject: cochlear implant rehabilitation
From:    Nathan Weisz  <Nathan.Weisz(at)UNI-KONSTANZ.DE>
Date:    Fri, 14 May 2004 16:19:49 +0200

Hi everyone,

I am currently trying to familiarize myself with the topic of
neuroplastic processes following cochlear implantation in
*postlingually* deaf subjects (CI-subjects hereafter). Naturally I came
across the works of Giraud (e.g., 2001, Neuron, 30, 657-63) who
reported the very interesting finding of visual cortex (V1, V2)
activity while listening to sounds in CI-subjects. The proposed
explanation was that this activity was related to lip-reading ability.
Indeed lip-reading activity was correlated with visual cortex activity.

Taken this interpretation for granted, I wondered what role visual cues
(e.g. lip-reading) play in rehabilitation / training (which I reckon
each one receives) of CI-subjects. Thus, is an enhanced visual cortex
activity an effect that comes "naturally" (i.e., without explicitely
training with visual cues) or could it simply be a consequence of how
the rehabilitation program is designed?

Does anyone have pointers (good articles, webpages) etc. to methods /
priciples of how to teach CI-subjects to hear with CI (especially
regarding the question above)? From your experience: is there something
like a widely agreed-upon "gold-standard" in training. Searching the
internet is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Any comments greatly appreciated.

Best,
Nathan