Federal Grant Award Summary

Father Flanagan's Boys' Home received a $320,445 Project Grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) under the Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders program (CFDA 93.173), awarded on July 8, 2026, with a completion date of May 31, 2031. The project, titled "Diagnosing Impaired Band Access in Patients with Cochlear Implants," delivers research services to identify factors affecting how cochlear implant users access speech cues across different frequencies. The research addresses significant variability in speech recognition outcomes among cochlear implant recipients by developing and validating assessment tools that measure individual differences in frequency-band access and determining the mechanisms—including patient properties, processor characteristics, electrode-nerve interface effects, and listening conditions—that influence these outcomes.

The grant-funded work encompasses three specific research aims: establishing normative ranges and reliability for band access measures through clinical and laboratory data analysis; identifying mechanisms producing poor band access through examination of signal processing strategies and auditory nerve properties; and testing whether band access measures generalize across varied speech stimuli and listening conditions. These deliverables will inform intervention strategies to improve speech recognition outcomes for cochlear implant users by enabling clinicians to predict and address individual variability in implant performance prior to or following implantation.