Success of children with cochlear implants in mainstream educational settings.

The availability of cochlear implant technology has made mainstreaming a more reachable social and academic goal for profoundly deaf children. Traditionally, the profoundly deaf child has required more self-contained education. It has been the hard-of-hearing child who reached the mainstream education classroom during the elementary years. Cochlear implant recipients, implanted early and receiving appropriate educational services that maximize learning across all domains, have shown a significant trend toward moving from a more self-contained to a less restrictive educational environment. Children with implants are making these transitions earlier than the larger majority of profoundly deaf children using traditional amplification.