5 Conclusion
Due to the high rate of CND in patients with SSD, BCDs have become an important method of hearing intervention for these patients [19]. Our findings confirmed that children with normal bilateral hearing experience greater speech perception ability and SRM than children with SSD. For school-aged NH children, the SRM continues to change with age. For children with SSD, BCDs remarkably improved speech perception ability in quiet and noisy conditions, but there was no statistical improvement in SRM after a short period of use. To our knowledge, this is the first study on BCD in the Mandarin-speaking paediatric SSD population, and further follow-ups are recommended to observe the hearing adaptation of these patients aided with BCDs.