Signs of binaural processing with bilateral cochlear implants in the case of someone with more than 50 years of unilateral deafness

A case is presented of a 70-year-old man with a profound sensorineural hearing loss in the right ear since childhood and who developed sudden severe hearing loss in the left ear at age 63. Eventually, after he received cochlear implants in both ears, he started to present behavioural auditory processing skills associated with binaural hearing, such as improved ability understanding speech in the presence of background noise, and sound localization. Responsiveness and outcomes were measured using cortical auditory evoked potentials, speech perception in noise, sound localization performance , and a self-rating questionnaire. The results suggest that even after more than 50 years of unilateral deafness it is possible to develop binaural interaction and sound localization.