Health Sciences · Hospital for Sick Children
A grey-and-black enclosure, rectangular in form with rounded edges. A beige earpiece and a dark brown circular element (a transmitting coil) are attached to the instrument’s upper surface by a brown cord.
A sliding panel at the base of the instrument may be removed to reveal a battery compartment.
A round, yellow sticker is affixed to the lower part of one face of the enclosure.
Accession Number: 2025.sk.49
Alternative Name:
Primary Materials: Metal, Plastic
A circular yellow sticker on the face of the enclosure has a writing that is difficult to interpret, but includes the text “02/03”.
The earpiece has the word “DEMO” written on it, and the cable that joins the earpiece to the RF coil has the letter “D” written on both connectors.
Height = 12.5, Width = 2, Length = 7.5; Corded element is about 45 cm in length.
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 a demonstration unit comprising the external elements (a “wearable speech processor”) of a cochlear implant system. These external elements could be upgraded relatively easily whereas the implant could not. First sold in the 1980s, this speech processor was capable of multichannel digital speech processing. It is considerably bulkier and has a less sophisticated speech processing algorithm than more modern units.
This artifact is intact and is in good condition. The earpiece is marked “DEMO” and may not be functional.
Associated Instruments:
Manufacturer: Cochlear, ltd. Sydney, Australia
Date of Manufacture: c. late 1980s to mid 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 lab’s founding in 1998.
These items remain on site and in possession of the Lab. They are used for teaching and demonstration purposes.
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.)
This unit was the first speech processor released for the Nucleus 22 cochlear implant by Cochlear, ltd. of Sydney, Australia.
The Nucleus 22 system was approved by the FDA for adults in 1985, and for adults in 1990.