NABLe Team Participated in CI BOSTON 2025 Conference

From April 30 to May 3, 2025, The NABLe research team took part in the CI BOSTON 2025 Conference held in Boston, USA. 

This globally renowned event brought together experts from a wide range of disciplines—including audiology, medicine, speech-language pathology, psychology, engineering, and education—to share cutting-edge research and explore clinical innovations related to cochlear implants (CIs).

During the Aural Rehabilitation Lunch, cochlear implant users, audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and representatives from CI companies gathered for an open discussion over lunch. They shared clinical and research challenges in auditory rehabilitation and explored ideas for improving CI outcomes through interdisciplinary collaboration.

One of the highlights of the conference was the keynote address by Prof. Em. Paul Van de Heyning, MD, PhD, titled: "Single-Sided Deafness and Frequency Allocation in Cochlear Implantation."His talk provided in-depth clinical insights and research-backed strategies for managing single-sided deafness with cochlear implants, emphasizing the importance of individualized frequency mapping.

Notably, he presented compelling evidence that deeper electrode insertion angles—up to 540 degrees—were significantly associated with improved low-frequency access and better speech-in-noise recognition. This finding has important implications for surgical planning and CI fitting in patients with single-sided deafness.

At this conference, there were many fascinating poster presentations, and this particular study stood out as especially interesting. It highlighted that music aptitude—especially timbre perception—is linked to better speech-in-noise performance in both adult and pediatric cochlear implant users, although musical training alone did not improve outcomes. Additionally, researcher Jiseong Kim presented a study titled “A Novel Rehabilitation Digital Therapeutic for Pediatric and Adolescent Cochlear Implant Users: A Double-Blind, Randomized Clinical Trial.”