Background and Aim: Despite the abundance of literature about deaf CHILDREN, few works specifically address the concept and practice of difficulties in parenting HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN. The first interactions of the child are with his parents, and parents have the most important role in child improvements during early intervention programs. The main purpose of this paper was to investigate different aspects of parenting HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN.Materials and Methods: In this article, we review all aspects of parenting HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN in papers from 1984-2009 in Medline, Scopus and Proquest and relative textbooks.Results: The semi - professional role of parents of HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN make them feel under excessive stress and this usually affects their other roles as fathers and mothers. Many factors including child age, type of HEARING loss and parents’ individual characteristics may influence the impact of child’s HEARING loss on parents.Conclusion: Parenting a HEARING - IMPAIRED child is both similar and different to parenting any other child. Where there are differences, there are usually challenges too. Taking support and advice from professionals and other parents are necessary and invaluable for parents of HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN.

Objective: This study was a basic investigation of the ability of concurrent speech segregation in HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN. Concurrent segregation is one of the fundamental components of auditory scene analysis and plays an important role in process of speech perception. In the present study, auditory late potentials of IMPAIRED CHILDREN were studied and were compared to the responses of normal groups.Materials & Methods: Auditory late potentials in response to 12 double vowels were recorded in 10 CHILDREN with moderate to severe sensory neural HEARING loss and 10 normal CHILDREN who were selected randomly. The age range of all participants was 4-6 years old (4.95 ± 0.72 for the normal group and 5.05 ± 0.79 for the HEARING IMPAIRED ones). Double vowels (pairs of synthetic vowels) were presented concurrently and binaurally. Fundamental frequency (F0) of these vowels and the size of the difference in F0 between vowels was 100 Hz and 0.5 semitones respectively. The HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN were selected randomly and blindly.Results: Comparing N1-P2 amplitude showed statistically significant difference in some stimuli between HEARING IMPAIRED and normal CHILDREN (P-value<0.05). More careful study of the results, N1-P2 amplitude- which is index of detecting vowel changes and reflecting verbal stimuli in central auditory system in absence of active participants- decreased in HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN.Conclusion: The present study showed concurrent speech segregation problems in HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN and provides evidence on problems in detection of speech features in a bo􀆩om-up processing (based on fundamental frequency and its differences) in the mentioned CHILDREN.

Objectives: Phonological deficits are expected in people with HEARING impairment because the auditory system is the basis for language acquisition. This study aims to compare phonological measurement indices in CHILDREN with cochlear implants (CI), HEARING aids, and normal HEARING.  Methods: This cross-sectional study included 100 Persian-speaking CHILDREN aged 3-6 years, including 25 CHILDREN with severe HEARING loss with bilateral HEARING aids, 25 with unilateral CI, and 50 with normal HEARING. CHILDREN with HEARING aids and CHILDREN with CI were selected by convenience sampling from the Naghma and Parvaneha Rehabilitation Center for HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN in Mashhad City, Iran. The phonological subtest of the Persian version of the diagnostic evaluation of articulation and phonology (DEAP), which includes the two tasks of picture naming and picture description was performed, and the phonological indices, including phonological mean length of utterance (PMLU), phonological whole- word proximity, proportion of whole-word correctness (PWC), percentage of consonants correct, and percentage of vowel correct (PVC), were calculated. The performances of participants in the three groups on each index were compared in picture naming and description tasks. Also, the performance of the participants in the two tasks was compared in each group. Results: A significant difference was observed in the mean scores of all phonological indices among the three groups (P<0.001), with CHILDREN with normal HEARING performing better than cochlear-implanted and HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN, and cochlear-implanted CHILDREN also had better performance than HEARING CHILDREN. Also, the difference in the mean of all phonological indices in the two tasks was only significant in the group with HEARING aids (P<0.05). Discussion: CHILDREN with cochlear implants, despite having a new and more useful technology than HEARING aids, still have problems with phonemic accuracy, especially in whole-word indices, compared to CHILDREN with normal HEARING. Also, the difference in indicators between the two tasks in the group with HEARING aids confirms the influence of phonetic context, which should be considered when evaluating and treating phonological deficits in these CHILDREN.

Background: Sound localization is a valuable skill whose maturation is influenced by auditory experience and is limited by bilateral sensorineural HEARING loss. No study has assessed auditory localization in bilateral HEARINGIMPAIRED CHILDREN (BHIC) aged 5-6 years. The present study aimed to investigate the auditory localization skill in CHILDREN with moderate-to-severe bilateral HEARING loss and using HEARING aids compared to their normally HEARING peers. Methods: This cross-sectional study recruited 19 participants aged 5-6 years (60-72 months) with a mean age of 65. 31±, 3. 83 months as the BHIC group and 21 participants aged 5-6 years with a mean age of 60. 21±, 3. 02 months as the normally HEARING CHILDREN (NHC) group. The localization ability of both groups was tested in 24 positions with 15-degree intervals by a speaker connected to a laptop and a calibrated speech stimulus named “, test. ”,A score of +0. 5 for each 15 degrees of error on the right side of the position and-0. 5 on the left side of the position were considered. Results: The results revealed a significant difference in the error rates between the two groups in four (out of 24) positions (P<0. 05). Differences were not statistically significant in other positions. Conclusion: The BHIC had a defect in the localization skill in some situations. Therefore, localization test and localization training are recommended for these CHILDREN.

The main goal of early detection of HEARING impairment in CHILDREN is early intervention. There is growing interest in early detection of HEARING impairment in developing countries. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the spoken language development in severe to profound HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN and compared their speech intelligibility with normal HEARING CHILDREN at the same age. Nine severe to profound HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN below 2 years old out of the primer 42 cases were selected for this survey. They receive aural habilitation and also speech therapy after beginning the speech production. Speech intelligibility test of these CHILDREN was recorded on audio-tape, when they read five questions which can be answered with one word only, at the age of 4, 5 and 6 in comparison with 27 normal HEARING CHILDREN at the same age. At the age of 4 the mean speech intelligibility score of the studied group was 31.77% (SD 12.17) and the control was %96 (SD 2.23). At the age of 5, this score was %51.22 (SD 14.42), the control one 97.85% (SD 1.93). Finally at age 6 it was 72% (SD 18.97) for HEARING–IMPAIRED group and 99.22% (SD 1.18) in control one. Severe to profound HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN acquired spoken language but not at the same level. In general, their speech development showed about 2 to 3 years delay. Their speech intelligibility was acceptable for severe group around the age 6 but almost semi–intelligible for profound group at the same age.

Background and Aim: The birth of a HEARING-IMPAIRED child and raising him/her often brings special psychological feelings for parents, especially mothers who spend more time with the child. This study aimed to compare the general health status in mothers of HEARING-IMPAIRED and HEARING CHILDREN.Methods: This was a descriptive-analytic study. General Health Questionnaire was used to identify general health status, and data were analyzed with independent-t test.Results: The general health level of mothers of HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN was lower than mothers of normal HEARING CHILDREN (p=0.01). The average scores of anxiety (p=0.01), depression (p=0.01) and physical (p=0.02) symptoms and social function (p=0.01) of mothers of HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN was higher than mothers of normal HEARING ones (p=0.01).Conclusion: Having a child with HEARING impairment affects mothers’ general health status. Our findings show that it's necessary to provide psychological and social support for mothers of HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN.

Background and Aim: Motor development is a continuous process throughout life. HEARING impairment in childhood may have significant effects on motor development. This study compared the motor development of normal-HEARING and HEARING-IMPAIRED CHILDREN at early developmental ages. Methods: This research was a cross-sectional study. A total of 149 CHILDREN aged six to eighteen months were selected and divided into three groups: normal-HEARING CHILDREN (NHC) (55 girls and 65 boys) selected by convenient sampling strategy, non-rehabilitated HEARING IMPAIRED CHILDREN group (NRHIC) (11 girls and 13 boys) selected by purposive method, and rehabilitated HEARINGIMPAIRED CHILDREN group (RHIC) (3 girls and 2 boys) selected by the census method. The Denver developmental screening test 2 (DDST-ll) was used to assess motor development. The obtained data were analyzed by Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney U tests, and curve drawing. Results: The fine motor development of the NHC (9. 63±, 28. 83) was significantly greater than the RHIC (-18 ±, 26. 83) and NRHIC (–, 21. 25±, 30. 26) groups, but there was no significant difference between the RHIC and NRHIC groups. In gross motor development, the NRHIC (–, 32. 71±, 41. 26) group had a more significant delay compared to the NHC (13. 38±, 37. 73) and RHIC (0±, 21. 21) groups, but there was no significant difference between the NHC and RHIC groups. Conclusion: HEARING rehabilitation can partially compensate for the developmental delay in gross skills, but this compensation has not occurred for fine motor skills. The development of fine motor skills requires a precise synergy of small muscles and the nervous system.