Do they have any reasons why? How old must a person be in order to test for dead zones? Ive Googled this and dead zones have been tested on both adults and children. Isn't the psychoacoustic test objective?
Well see if you can test her on the piano thud test. It's not 100% accurate but will give an estimate. Compare her CI alone vs. her HA alone. Good instructions on that test with results of others who took it.
http://www.alldeaf.com/hearing-aids-cochlear-implants/65680-take-piano-thud-test-whats-highest-frequency-you-properly-hear.html
cochlear dead children - Google Search
So besides dead zones, do they have any other reasons? I am curious to learn about this. Can they try testing her thru filtered speech with different frequency cutoffs and determine if cutting off the highs has any effect? Another option is to drastically reduce the gains/spl in the high frequencies and see if her speech remains the same. For me, any gains above 500-600Hz does not improve my speech score. This means my cochlea is dead to speech except in the low frequencies. For sounds, it's dead to sounds above 1200Hz according to the piano thud test.
http://www.scielo.br/pdf/rboto/v73n4/en_a16v73n4.pdf
We know that a CI worked great for her. We have not yet ruled out every possibility with HAs. I advocate against CI for those who have not ruled out every option with HAs including different HAs, maximum amplification, transposition, etc. It makes no sense costwise and riskwise except as a last resort.
Or the HA could prove mostly or fully useful. One must always err on the side of caution and fully exhaust every last option with HAs before even considering CI. There's no risk to HAs but CI carries risks. There would need to be a very large improvement with CI before risking it. The FDA requires a maximum speech score of 30% for children and 40% to 50% for adults before they qualify for CI. You may think 50% is bad but lipreading can easily fill in the parts that the person misses. 50% without lipreading, 95% with lipreading.
A CI won't work well for you either since a healthy auditory nerve is required. Miss Kat's auditory nerve was fine however.
