Eli5: How do people who’ve never had any hearing, but who receive cochlear implants later in life, understand their “native” language?

Question

I’ve seen videos of people sitting in the doctor’s office getting their implants turned on, and they’re responding to questions like, “Can you hear me?” or “How is the volume?” How do they know what they’re being asked if they’ve never before heard how language sounds?

In: 672

Answer 1

It often takes years of exposure, often therapy, to understand spoken language for someone with lifelong profound deafness.

The videos you see of older people understanding speech when their implant is activated often lost hearing later in life.