No. Following surgery, the implant is “switched-on” after about 2-3 weeks (once the wound behind the ear heals). “Switch-on” involves fitting the external processor on the ear and the first programming session (mapping) of the device.

Children born with a hearing loss, who have never been exposed to sound, will not be able to assign any meaning to the sound they hear at first. So, at “switch-on”, the child’s hearing is similar to that of a one-day old baby. A child who has undergone a cochlear implant surgery will need to undergo a structured ‘habilitation’ program i.e sessions with a therapist / habilitationist who will teach the child to understand the meaning of the sounds that the child can now hear. In addition to this the device will also have to be “mapped” (programmed) intermittently by the child’s audiologist.

In adults, or in children who have already acquired language and speech, but who have lost hearing due to age-related degeneration, meningitis or have had progressive hearing loss, the habilitation period is shorter. But they will still require some amount of training to re-learn the sound stimulation that the implant provides.