CROS and Quality of Life of Elderly Cochlear Implant Recipients and Their Care Givers

The purpose of this study is to assess the effect of the Naida Link contralateral routing of signal (CROS) device on speech understanding in challenging listening situations and on the quality of life in unilateral CI recipients and their frequent communication partners. We hypothesize that: 1. Unilateral CI recipients will obtain higher speech understanding scores with the CROS device in challenging listening conditions 2. Use of the CROS device will lead to positive changes in ratings on Quality of Life measures for (i) unilateral CI recipients, and (ii) their frequent communication partners A frequent communication partner (FCP) is an individual (a family member, or a friend, or a care taker, or a significant other, or a colleague, etc.) who has at least two hours of in-person interactions with the CI recipient every week.