Performance ratings for children using bilateral cochlear implants obtained with the Speech, Spatial, and Other Qualities of Hearing Scale for parents

Introduction Researchers at The University of Melbourne are evaluating the broader outcomes of bilateral implantation in early implanted school-age children, including effects on parent and child stress (Sarant and Garrard, 2013), language (Sarant et al., 2014), psychosocial functioning, academic achievement, and everyday listening. The Speech, Spatial, and Other Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ) is a three-part adult questionnaire (http://www.ihr.mrc.ac.uk/products/ display/ssq; Gatehouse and Noble, 2004). The SSQ focusses mainly on hearing functions requiring the binaural system and is therefore suitable for evaluating everyday listening performance with bilateral implants. The SSQ-P is an adapted version for use with parents of children with hearing impairment (Galvin and Noble, 2013). The first section of the SSQ focusses on speech perception in different listening scenarios, such as in group conversation in a noisy environment, or a single speaker in a reverberant environment. The second section focusses on spatial hearing, in this case the direction of movement and location of sound sources, including the speaker in a group conversation. The final section focusses on other qualities of hearing, including sound segregation, listening effort, and sound and object identification.