Is db loss at average across board OR which frequency??? U keep saying 15 or whatever db loss but which frequency???? These people may have no High frequency.
My speech scores are in the 90's and i am 30/35 db ACROSS the audiogram.
What speech tests did you score 90% and is this with speechreading? I can score 80% easily with speechreading. In the real world, I can understand more than 50% of what my dad says without speechreading. I will have to get a HINT speech test(or some other test) next time I see an audiologist.
Here is an example of 80db pure tone average. This person is severely deaf unaided but with powerful HAs, is aided at 10db in several frequencies dropping down to a still decent 30db aided at 4000Hz. This person does not have cochlear dead zones even at 4000Hz. He understands speech better and hears more sounds than those with a CI. He is able to hear very faint sounds down to 10db such as the rustling of leaves! He can hear someone whispering from across the room! He can overhear people talking from the other room! He can hear his neighboor playing the piano! He hears an ambulance from several blocks away! Phi4sius would be an example of all this, among others with very similar audiograms.
Here is an example of 100db pure tone average. This person is profoundly deaf unaided but with powerful HAs, is aided at 30db across the audiogram. He was tested to have cochlear dead zones at 2000Hz and 4000Hz(and of course above that too) He got transpositional HAs which shift 2000Hz and 4000Hz down to a lower frequency, enabling him to hear at 30db! His speech score was 40% before transposition, now it's 50%! This would be an example of a "borderline" candidate. Although some insurance companies may still reject him. He would then need to pay $50,000 per ear if he still wanted CI and there's
no guarantee of hearing better! That's his money and choice to do what he wants to do.
He hears at 30db which is still great and matches what you and many others hear with CI. There would still be a quality improvement(but not quantity) hearing 30db with CI vs. 100db unaided hearing at 30db aided. Even if one were to insist that CI still provides better quality hearing(from what I know, it's of equal quality) than an 80db loss, there is still no way(unless you happen to be the cyborg queen) a CI can match the 10db aided score that's possible with only 80db loss using properly fitted HAs! Therefore the quantity of an 80db loss would be way above that of CI!
http://www.alldeaf.com/hearing-aids-cochlear-implants/69092-degrees-hearing-loss-speech-scores.html
This thread talks about how someone can be missing at least 25% speech when hearing at 30db. It would be very, very hard(if not impossible) for CI at 30db to make up for 10db with HAs as youll be on the top of the speech banana with HAs, provided your hearing loss isn't profound. Not only that, youll hear way more environmental sounds at 10db than at 30db.
Anyone with a decent amount of residual hearing who still scores poorly in speech needs to get proper HAs, test for cochlear dead zones(transposition to bypass dead zones) and test the quality of your auditory nerve, test for auditory processing disorder, get speech training, etc. When you aren't missing frequencies or sounds with HAs, there's no reason your speech scores should be low. If the reason is anything other than cochlear dead zones(first try transposition!) then you may not do well with CI either as Bottesini learned. She's not a CI candidate despite poor speech scores due to other problems.
