Can a child with a cochlear implant use a plastic slide?

The short answer, and who says so

Yes, a child with a cochlear implant can use a plastic slide. What should not go down the slide is the external sound processor. Take it off first, completely, and put it back on once the child has discharged.

That is not one clinic's caution. It is in the current device instructions from three implant makers, and in the guidance of two pediatric cochlear implant programs. Nothing about the child's own safety changes: St. Louis Children's Hospital says a child will be safe after a static shock to the arm, and the concern is a discharge directly to the external speech processor².

Playground guidance says nothing about it. The CPSC's Public Playground Safety Handbook does not mention static electricity at all⁷, and vision and hearing design treats cochlear implants as an acoustics problem. Static is a separate, physical one, and it has a design answer.

What the device instructions say, side by side

Manufacturers are named here only as the authors of their own device instructions. Always check the manual that came with the child's model, since wording varies between documents and editions.

Two details are easy to miss. The first is that "off" is not "removed". MED-EL states that switching the processor off may not prevent damage, and Advanced Bionics names the headpiece as well as the processor. The second is that the Cochlear warning appears, in the same words, in a 2022 document and a 2024 one, so this is current instruction rather than a leftover from older hardware.

Why two answers circulate

Parents hear two things. One is "never let them near a plastic slide". The other is "modern implants are protected, so it does not matter any more". Both contain a true sentence, and neither is the instruction.

The protection is real. Advanced Bionics says its systems are robustly designed with numerous safeguards against static, which greatly minimizes the risk of damage³. MED-EL describes several internal safety features and says the most likely result of a discharge is a short interruption of stimulation or a controlled shutdown of the processor⁶. CID notes that current implant design limits the risk¹.

The residual risk is also real, and all three makers name it. Cochlear says a discharge can in rare cases damage components or corrupt the program⁴. MED-EL says there is a small risk that external or internal equipment is damaged, and that in rare cases the user may experience uncomfortably loud hearing sensations⁶. CID adds that if the child's map is erased, they will not be able to hear from the implant until it is restored¹.

So the settled answer is this: the risk is low, the consequence is a child who cannot hear until the audiologist fixes it, and removing the processor for the length of a slide costs almost nothing. That is why every source still says to take it off. The "it does not matter" version persists because the reassurance is quoted without the instruction that follows it.

How to do it at the slide

The grounding step comes straight from the instructions. MED-EL tells a charged user to discharge by touching a radiator, a water tap or any grounded metal object, and not to let another person touch the external parts unless both have discharged⁶. Cochlear says to touch something conductive, such as a metal door handle, before the implant system contacts any object or person⁴. CID and St. Louis Children's both tell the adult to ground themselves before touching the device¹². On a playground, a steel post set in the ground is the obvious thing to touch.

If the processor stops working after a slide, MED-EL's manual says to switch it off, wait a few minutes, switch it on again, and call the healthcare provider if it does not come back⁶. Carry the audiologist's number and, if the child has one, the backup processor.

What else counts as a plastic slide

The sources name the same handful of activities. Advanced Bionics lists sliding on plastic slides, playing on trampolines and plastic tubes³. St. Louis Children's lists plastic slides, trampolines, balloons and plastic ball pits². On a playground that means tube slides and crawl tubes as well as open chutes; see tunnels and crawl spaces for how common molded plastic tubes are on composite structures. At home it means the backyard trampoline and the plastic slide that comes bundled with most playsets, which is worth weighing when choosing a playset.

Surfacing is not on any source's list. The rubber mulch guide notes that dry rubber in dry climates generates noticeable static on slides; for most children that is a nuisance, but for a child wearing a processor it is one more reason to follow the removal rule rather than trust the conditions.

What a playground can do about it

This is where a site owner has real choices, and none of them is expensive compared to the structure they sit on.

Put at least one metal chute on the site. CID's own recommendation is metal slides as the inclusive option¹, and it is the only change that lets a child keep hearing their friends all the way down. A stainless chute costs more than a plastic one, roughly $1,500 to $6,000 against $600 to $2,500 as 2026 US equipment only pricing in the slides guide, and it lasts for decades. The broader trade-offs are in materials: steel, wood and plastic.

Put it beside the plastic one, not somewhere else. A metal chute alongside the plastic chute from the same deck, or a stainless embankment slide next to the main structure, means the child with the implant slides with the group instead of being sent to a different corner. That is the difference beyond compliance describes between a counted component and shared play.

Deal with the heat. Stainless in full sun is a burn risk, and a metal slide nobody can touch in July is not an inclusive option. Face the chute away from afternoon sun or shade it, following heat and burn risk and shade and heat design.

Give the exit a metal touch point. A child who comes off a plastic chute charged will discharge on the first grounded thing they touch. Where the slide exit leads straight onto a metal ladder or rail, that is a hand on metal, which is exactly what the manufacturers ask for, provided the processor is still off. The problem is the kind of play loop covered in layout and circulation: slide, ladder, deck, slide again, with the processor back on in between or never removed. A steel post or rail at the exit, at hand height, and a bench nearby where an adult can hold the device, turn the routine into something a family can repeat without thinking.

Where this answer stops applying

This page covers cochlear implant sound processors and the instructions quoted above. It does not cover hearing aids or bone conduction devices, whose makers publish their own guidance. It does not give a humidity or weather threshold, because none of the sources gives one. And it does not replace the child's own device manual or audiologist: models change, and so do instructions.

It also does not make a playground unsafe. A plastic slide meeting the geometry in slide safety is a normal piece of equipment. The static question is about protecting a device, and the CPSC handbook and the standards summarized in CPSC, ASTM and standards are silent on it.

What to do next

If you are a parent, adopt the removal routine above and use the parent's playground check to spot metal slides at the parks you visit. If you manage a site, add one line to your next inclusive site audit: is there a metal chute beside the plastic ones, in shade, with a metal touch point at the exit? If you are writing a brief, specify it now, while it is a line item rather than a retrofit.