Children's Memorial Cochlear Implant Program:
Helping children achieve their full potential
Why choose our Cochlear Implant Program?
Experience counts in obtaining the best possible improvement in hearing and language for your child. With more than 1,000 implants in more than 800 children performed since 1991, our nineteen member multi-disciplinary cochlear implant team is one of the most experienced in the world. We believe that working as a team and collaborating with parents as partners is the best way to ensure that each child we serve has the opportunity to achieve their potential. Our team's collective knowledge and expertise is considerable. The following are some of the important areas where our team's experience and services can make a difference:
Before implantation:
- Accurate diagnosis of your child's degree of hearing loss is essential. We have the largest pediatric audiology department in Illinois. We provide advanced auditory brainstem response testing, auditory steady-state testing and behavioral evaluations of children.
- Fitting advanced hearing aids to ensure that an implant is the right choice is also crucial. No audiology program in Illinois has more experience. It is our job to ensure that your child's lack of benefit from the aid is real – not secondary to poor fitting or the type of hearing aid.
- Loaner hearing aids are available for newly diagnosed children who are likely to be cochlear implant candidates.
- We determine if your child will do better with an implant or with hearing aids. Our pediatric cochlear implant audiologists do specialized testing to determine the degree to which your child receives useful information about spoken language from hearing aids.
- We determine if an implant in one or both ears would be best for your child. More than 200 children have been implanted in both ears at our center. However, some children do best using a cochlear implant in one ear and a hearing aid in the opposite ear. We are careful to identify those children.
- We provide parents with information about benefits their child will likely receive based upon his or her unique history. We have 20 years of experience observing the changes that implantation makes possible for children of all ages, using varying communication methods.
- We work with your child's therapist who provides hearing and speech therapy. Or you may choose to receive these services from one of our therapists.
- We provide parents with information about communication options, as well as therapists and schools that will help children benefit fully from their implant.
- We serve many children with complex medical conditions. We provide care coordination to ensure that your child is ready for implant surgery.
- We have special expertise in evaluation of deaf children with complex medical needs as well as those with auditory neuropathy, deafness secondary to meningitis and those with malformed inner ears and other challenging anatomy.
During surgery:
- We provide your child with a safe, effective and timely surgery using a minimal incision. Our surgeon has personally performed more than 1,000 implantations. Our anesthesiology faculty is focused solely on caring for children.
After surgery:
- Your child's implant system will be programmed by experienced pediatric audiologists who specialize in cochlear implantation. Customizing your child's cochlear implant map to meet their unique needs is critical to your child's success. Our audiologists have experience programming all types of implant systems currently FDA approved, including those with specialized double or compressed electrode arrays. In addition, our cochlear implant audiologists are vigilant and have expertise in determining whether your's child device is functioning properly. It is very important that proper function be maintained and problems addressed so that your child's progress will not be affected.
- We provide short-term hearing therapy to children who do not have a local provider or who may benefit from additional intensive therapy.
- You will continue to have access to all of the hearing health care professionals who are members of our implant team. Our team also provides outreach to educate professionals in the community about the needs of implanted children.
Who are the cochlear implant team members?
Nancy M. Young, MD, is the program founder and medical director. She completed a neurotology (advanced ear surgery) fellowship in 1988 and is the first physician with this training to specialize in children. Her work also was featured in Chicago Magazine's 2008 “Top Doctor” issue.
Caring for your child is a dedicated and experienced implant team of pediatric audiologists, speech pathologists, social workers, music therapists, deaf educators, a psychologist, a registered nurse as well as support staff to help with scheduling, equipment and insurance.
The hospital's cochlear implant team has special expertise in evaluating and implanting:
- Infants and young children - More than 25 children have been safely implanted between 5 months and 11 months of age at our program.
- Difficult-to-test children
- Children diagnosed with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD)
- Children with complicating medical conditions such as CHARGE syndrome.
Our philosophy is that each child should have the opportunity to develop to their full potential. We evaluate each child as an individual. We have experience working with children of all ages, using all types of communication methods. We work with public and private schools, mainstream and special education teachers, as well as private therapists to ensure your child's success.
Your child's first appointment: What to expect
At your child's initial consultation, we provide more information about cochlear implantation and the evaluation process. We ask permission to obtain your child's school records, and to speak with your child's private therapists and school professionals. We can also arrange for you to speak with other families whose children have already received an implant.
Please be prepared to provide us with the name and address of your child's pediatrician or family doctor, as well as any other medical specialists involved in your child's care. We also request that you provide us with copies of your child's vaccination records.
Specialized audiologic testing (speech perception tests) will be needed to confirm your child's implant candidacy. If needed, hearing aids will be loaned to your child for the evaluation process. Once we have determined that your child would receive more benefit from an implant than from his or her hearing aids, imaging studies will be scheduled. A CT scan of the ears and/or an MRI will be recommended. At any point during the preoperative evaluation period, you can meet with Dr. Young. She will consult with you again closer to the date of surgery to answer any additional questions.
The preoperative consultation and audiologic testing, the medical consultation, surgery and postoperative programming are available at the main hospital in Chicago and at our outpatient facility in Westchester.
Please note: Young or difficult-to-test children may require multiple appointments to complete required speech perception testing. The order of these evaluations may be changed to meet you and your child's needs. For families coming from a distance, it is possible to schedule multiple evaluations over several days. We can also help you find local accommodations. Learn more about staying in Chicago.
For more information and consultation scheduling
If you have questions or to schedule an initial consultation, please call 773.880.4605 or e-mail cochlearimplant@childrensmemorial.org
Equipment donations are welcome
Donations of new and used hearing aids, FM systems and cochlear implant equipment are welcome. You will be provided with a letter acknowledging your in-kind donation for tax purposes. Please call 773.880.4605 regarding donations.