Audiology

Competing sentence test (CST) results in patients with cerebrovascular accident (CVA)

Roya Abolfazli

Objective: As the cerebrovascular diseases (CVD) are among the most common anomalies that are directly or indirectly affecting the auditory cortex, studying in this area is important. We tried to evaluate the function of CANS in a group of 50-70 years old cerebrovascular accident (CVA) patients with no hearing complaint by competing sentences test (CST) as a dichotic speech test.
Method and Material: This cross-sectional analytical study was conducted at Loghman-e-Hakim hospital between 22, august 1999 and 20, July 2000 in a group of 30 normal 50-70 years old persons and a group of 40 patients with CVA including 30 patients with abnormal CT scan and 10 patients with normal CT scan.
Results: The results point out the mean scores of CST in the normal group were at normal range (80-100%) in both ears. And mean scores of CST decreased in the patients groups. There were significant difference between mean scores of CST in the patients with CVA and control groups. Conclusion: CST seems to be a valuable test in the CANS test batteries for the cerebrovascular diseases.

Hearing status of the blind school boys

Karim Sattari

Objective: A survey on hearing state of blind schoolboys in Tehran.
Method and Material: This cross-sectional descriptive survey was conducted on 640 ears of 320 blind schoolboys of 5-23 years old as a hearing screening in Tehran blind schools, 2000-01.
Results: 20.94% was hearing-impaired of whom 13.75% had bilateral and 7.19% had unilateral hearing loss. 15.16% of students suffered from sensory-neural hearing loss (SNHL), 1.56% from conductive hearing loss (CHL) and 0.62% from mixed hearing loss (MHL), that is, SNHL occurred 10 times more than CHL. Hearing loss was often mild and moderate, and audiogram configuration was primarily high tone loss (HTL). On the whole, 8.13% of students needed medical treatment, 15.13% needed audiological rehabilitation and 3.44% of them were in need of both medical and rehabilitation Intervention. General information about hearing problem was very low among students, their parents and teachers, which was 26.87%, 20.9% and 22.39%, respectively. There is significant relation between SNHL and parents&apos relationship.
Conclusion: The prevalence of hearing loss in blinds is higher than in normal-visions. It is often sensorineural. So, it is important to identify these children through hearing screening (Using more high frequencies) and to conduct medical as well as rehabilitative intervention.

Rhyme and syllable recognition in severe to profound hearing-impaired children

Marjan Shahriari

Objective: A research was conducted to assess the phonological awareness in hearing-impaired children in comparison to normal children. In this context, we discussed about the ability of these children in identification of rhyme and word segmentation to syllables.
Method and Material: The sample of this study is composed of 320 children, 160 normal & 160 hearing-impaired with a hearing-loss. Of over 70 dB, studying in the 1st t 4th grade of the primary schools in Tehran. They are divided into two groups at each level (20 girls & 20 boys).
Results: 1) Hearing-impaired children&aposs scores on test related to rhyme and syllable is lower as compared with normal children. 2) Hearing-impaired children are more potent on test of word segmentation to syllables in comparison to that related to rhyme, while normal children are more successful on test of word segmentation to syllables as compared with that related to rhyme.

Discussion: Hearing is an important factor in phonological awareness. Formal education at special schools doesn&apost compensate for the hearing impairment as to development of the phonological awareness.

OAE, a corner in audiologic workup

Mehri Khorasani

Objective: OAE an audiologic study for diagnosis of exteracochlear auditory neuropathy.
Method & Material: Immitance audiometry, OAE and ABR and rehabilitation Intervention was performed for 3 children suffered from kernictrus.
Conclusion: 1) OAE in the from of screening, distorted product and transient evoked-otoacoustic emission has to be added to our audiology test battery. 2) OAE studies have their own merit when we are clinically involved with the diagnosis of especial clinical entities like neonatal hypoxia, kernicterus, multiple sclerosis, meningitides and meningoencephalitis. 3) Case selection for cochlear implantation needs a knowledge of patients' OAE results. 4) In the case of intracerebral auditory neuropathy the need for other rehabilitative measures will be better understood.

The latest Findings in nutritional treatment of tinnitus

Habib Vahedi

Tinnitus is a common symptom that can result from a wide range of underlying causes. When there are several reasons for appearing a symptom, the diagnosis and treatment would be difficult. Although tinnitus treatment is difficult recent studies have asserted that nutrition has a crucial role in causing tinnitus or preventing it. Nutrients such as zinc supplementation, Vitamin combinations, etc. have been demonstrated to be important in treatment and/or prevention of tinnitus.

Communication between deaf children and their hearing mothers:The role of language, gesture, and vocalizations

Faranak Sakhedri

In the present longitudinal study, 20 deaf and 20 hearing childrenwere observed during free play with their hearing mothers whenthe children were 22 months and 3 years of age. Compared tohearing children, deaf children were severely language delayed,with deaf 3-year-olds using less language (speech or sign) than hearing 22-month-olds. Deaf children communicated primarilythrough nonlinguistic vocalizations, with increasing use ofgesture from 22 months to 3 years of age. Although mothers ofdeaf children used more visual communication than mothers ofhearing children, they still primarily communicated throughspeech. In addition, deaf children did not visually attend tomuch of their mothers&apos communication. Therefore, deaf childrenreceived much less communication than hearing children. Theseresults suggest that intervention efforts should be focusedon increasing the quantity of perceived linguistic input bythe child.

Auditory Hallucination

MohammadReza Rajabi

Auditory Hallucination or Paracusia is a form of hallucination that involves perceiving sounds without auditory stimulus. A common is hearing one or more talking voices which is associated with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia or mania. Hallucination, itself, is the most common feature of perceiving the wrong stimulus or to the better word perception of the absence stimulus.Here we will discuss four definitions of hallucinations:1. Perceiving of a stimulus without the presence of any subject2. hallucination proper which are the wrong perceptions that are not the falsification of real perception, Although manifest as a new subject and happen along with and synchronously with a real perception3. hallucination is an out-of-body perception which has no accordance with a real subject In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid, substantial, and located in external objective space. We are going to discuss it in details here.

Cochlear implant in adults

Jaleh Samadi

Cochlear implant is the result of a great combination and collaboration of engineering and medicine. It is mainly because it has the most conflict with the human nervous system among all prosthesis. Cochlear implant helps a child with profound hearing loss to understand and articulate speech and let an adult person with hearing loss communicate with people by phone. Although these wonderful results could not be seen in all patients, will let us know about the great scientific findings.

A child with learning disability:a case study

Mahin Sedaie

This case can be placed in a neurologic classification. The patient is a child with learning disability in school activities. He was first referred to an audiological clinic because of a central auditory processing disorder (CAPD). His mother has noticed several hearing problems and this led us to the evaluations for his central auditory processing disorder. He has problems in hearing speech in noise and speech processing and need his friends repeat words during communication. no vestibular disorder was noticed nor any localization problem. The child has a good progress in school and only suffered problems in reading tasks. Intelligence quotient(IQ) was also normal.