Health Sciences · Hospital for Sick Children
A grey plastic enclosure with a slightly darker grey plastic around the perimeter. A dark brown earpiece is attached to the instrument’s upper surface by a beige cord. The external transmitting coil that would normally be attached to the earpiece is missing from this example.
A side compartment with a hinged lid can be opened to reveal the socket for the corded elements. The lid is designed in such a way as to prevent accidental detachment from the body-worn enclosure.
A lid at the rear of the unit can be removed to reveal the battery compartment and a socket, presumably for programming the unit.
Accession Number: 2025.sk.50
Alternative Name:
Primary Materials: Metal, Plastic
A circular yellow sticker on the face of the enclosure has a marking that is difficult to interpret, but includes the text “02/03”.
Height = 9.5, Width = 2, Length = 6; Corded element is about 1 m.
Cochlear implants are used for severely to profoundly deaf patients for whom acoustic amplification offers no benefit. A cochlear implant stimulates the auditory nerve tissue directly using electrical signals in order to create a sensation of hearing.
A cochlear implant consists of two separate components, an implant with an electrode array extending into the cochlea, and an externally worn sound processor. The external element contains such things as a microphone, a battery, a sound processing system, and a transmitter that sends signal and power to the implant.
This is an incomplete example of the external sound processing elements of a cochlear implant system. This is a second generation “Mini” sound processing system that replaced the earlier Nucleus Wearable Speech Processor (WSP) around 1989. The body-worn unit was smaller, and had an improved speech processing algorithm, compared to the earlier system.
This unit is in good cosmetic condition, though slightly dirty. It is missing a transmitting coil.
Associated Instruments:
Manufacturer: Cochlear, ltd. Sydney, Australia
Date of Manufacture: c. 1990s.
This is part of a small collection of artifacts, gathered by Archie’s Cochlear Implant Lab at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), that was photographed on 8 October 2025. The items represent various stages of the technology used since the labs founding in 1998.
These items remain on site and in possession of the Lab. They are used for teaching and demonstration purposes.
Margaret W. Skinner, et al. “Performance of Postlinguistically Deaf Adults with the Wearable Speech Processor (WSP III) and Mini Speech Processor (MSP) of the Nucleus Multi-Electrode Cochlear Implant.” Ear and Hearing 12, no. 1 (1991): 3–22.
James F. Patrick, Peter A Busby, and Peter J Gibson (2006). “The Development of the Nucleus® FreedomTM Cochlear Implant System.” Trends in Amplification 10, no. 4: 175–200.
Cochlear, ltd. was founded in 1981 based on developmental research into cochlear implants by a group led by Dr. Graeme Clark at the University of Melbourne, Australia. This followed a decade of research in areas such as biocompatible materials and safe thresholds of electrical stimulation with the cochlea. The company’s first-generation cochlear implant system, based on the Cl22 implant, was commercially released for adults in 1985. (See Patrick, Busby, and Gibson 2006, 177.)
The all-digital Mini Speech Processor was developed between 1985 and 1989 by Cochlear Limited of Australia. Trails of the device and its new sound processing system are described in Skinner et al. 1991.