My daughter went from 1 to 2 (with about a year between surgeries). Our expectations -- based on discussions with our surgeon, audiologists with experience, and with representatives from the CI companies, as well as review of the few studies available at the time -- were that benefits would be small, incremental, focused around hearing in noise.
But, we were astounded to find a tremendous benefit, despite only minor improvement in controlled booth tests,. My prelingually deaf daughter has experienced a huge increase in comprehension in typical class environments, on the playground, in loud gyms, in restaurants, in windy circumstances. Her speech leapt from understandable but indistinct approximations of spoken nouns and a few verbs to clear, well articulated, grammatically correct and complex sentences within a year of the second implant.
We came very close to NOT getting the second CI, thinking we would wait for future medical/technological advances. Fortunately, we decided that hearing in your average noisy room or location was pretty important to us, as she preferred to be out of the booth
. I'm so very glad we didn't wait.
