Objectives: To assess a group of post-lingually children after 10 years of implantation with regard to speech perception, speech intelligibility, and academic/occupational status.

Study Design: A prospective transversal study. Setting: Pediatric referral center for cochlear implantation. Patients: Ten post-lingually deafened children with Nucleus and Med-El cochlear implants.

Interventions: Speech perception and speech intelligibility tests and interview.

Main Outcome Measures: The main outcome measures were score of Hint sentences recognition (silence and noise), speech intelligibility scores(write-down intelligibility and rating scale scores) and academic/ occupational status.

Inclusion Criteria:

• postlingually deaf
• age at cochlear implant: < 18 years
• more than 10 years of cochlear implant use

Exclusion Criteria:

• other disabilities

The age at evaluation was 19,3 to 29,2 years. The age at cochlear implant surgery was 5,4 to 16,10 years. The etiology of the deafness was: meningitis (5), ototoxic (1), mumps (2) and unknown (2).