Abstract
Background Music is a very important art form that can evoke strong emotions and involvement
with it can have a considerable impact on cochlear implant (CI) recipients' quality
of life. It is well known that music perception is limited in CI with fully electric
hearing and CI recipients have significantly poorer music-appraisal ability when compared
with normal hearing subjects. Considering the importance of music on the life of an
adolescent and negative impact of hearing loss on mental health, understanding and
improving music listening habits and perception abilities can have a positive impact
on the mental health of CI user adolescents.
Purpose This study aims to evaluate music listening habits and music perception abilities
of prelingually deafened adolescent CI users to reveal the relationship between self-reported
assessment and psychophysical measurement.
Research Design The psychophysical measures of music perception and self-reported music listening
habits of adolescent CI users were obtained.
Study Sample Twenty-nine prelingually deafened adolescent CI users were evaluated in this study.
Data Collection and Analysis The Turkish Clinical Assessment of Music Perception (T-CAMP) test was used to evaluate
music perception abilities. These abilities were evaluated with a three-item questionnaire
assessing enjoyment of music, listening habits, and comprehension of lyrics. Pearson's
correlation coefficients were calculated to assess the relationship between the T-CAMP
subtests and questionnaire items.
Results Statistically significant correlations were observed between the melody-recognition
subtest of T-CAMP and all three questionnaire items. The correlation between the enjoyment
and rate items on the questionnaire was also statistically significant.
Conclusion The present study shows that adolescent CI users also enjoy and listen to music in
ways similar to postlingually deafened adult CI users. It also demonstrates that melody-recognition
abilities have a significant relationship with music enjoyment and listening habits
in prelingually deafened adolescent CI users.
Keywords
cochlear implants - music perception - listening habits - adolescent
