5 Conclusion
Due to the high rate of CND in patients with SSD, BCDs have become an
important method of hearing intervention for these patients [19].
Our findings confirmed that children with normal bilateral hearing
experience greater speech perception ability and SRM than children with
SSD. For school-aged NH children, the SRM continues to change with age.
For children with SSD, BCDs remarkably improved speech perception
ability in quiet and noisy conditions, but there was no statistical
improvement in SRM after a short period of use. To our knowledge, this
is the first study on BCD in the Mandarin-speaking paediatric SSD
population, and further follow-ups are recommended to observe the
hearing adaptation of these patients aided with BCDs.