Long-Term Results of Cochlear Implant under the Age of Two

Among the 84 children implanted by our team since 1991 whose first language was Greek, 34 were under the age of 2 years (group 1) and 29 were between 2 and 4 years (group 2) at the time of implantation. All 14 children of group 1 and all 13 children of group 2 who completed 2 years of observation after implantation were evaluated. All children implanted under the age of 2 developed in their native language and were able to be integrated in mainstream schools without special education, whereas 14 out of the 16 children of group 2 and only 3 out of the 17 children implanted after the age of 4 were able to develop their first language. The earlier the implantation, the better the results and the less special rehabilitation was needed.