Background and Aim: Hearing protectors (HP)  are widely employed as the only measure against noise exposure.  However, it is well known that unless do workers wear HP continuously, its efficacy will be very low. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of risk perception, knowledge and safety attitude on hearing protection use in petrochemical industry&aposs workers.
Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study a structural questionnaire was administrated to 236 randomly selected workers in Iranian petrochemical industry who had been to 85 dBA noise and some influencing factors including risk perception, knowledge and general attitude to safety on using of HP had been investigated.
Results: This study showed that only 20.3% of employees claimed to wear hearing protection all the time when they exposed to noise. There was a significant relationship between use of hearing protector and worker&aposs risk perception (p=0.048) and also their knowledge about hearing protection(p=0.009). Also, the relationship between general attitude of workers to safety and risk perception was statistically significant (p=0.046).  
Conclusion: The results of the study  showed that for promoting the use of  hearing  protectors,  two main strategy should be followed. First, removing the barriers to make hearing protectors compliant, and  second enhancing the  workers&apos risk perception about hearing loss and  proper use of ear protectors.

Background and Aim: Hearing impairment is the most prevalent sensorineural defect in human. Epidemiological studies and the following preventive programs are the first steps to save many individuals from being handicapped and non-productive. Hereby, we aimed to study the prevalence of hearing impairment in Ardabil province and to assess the prevalent causes of hearing impairment in Ardabil.
Methods: In this study, 10718 cases were selected by random cluster sampling from rural and urban population in Ardabil province. Data was gathered using screening questionnaire, normal- and impaired-hearing individual questionnaire, and clinical audiometry. Statistical indices were calculated and data was analyzed using chi-square test.
Results: 7.1 per thousand individuals suffer hearing impairment and 4.3 per thousand are deaf. Hearing impairment was significantly more among villagers and aged individuals (p=0.46). However, there was no significant deference between two genders (p>0.05). Our results also showed significant deference in consanguineous marriage (p=0.031), accidents in pregnancy (p=0.007), older age of mother (p=0.007), parents hearing loss, severe illness during childhood (p=0.001), low family income (p=0.004), rural housing and educational level of parents (p=0.001) with hearing impairment.
Conclusion: Health status, economical, cultural and educational level of society are the most important factors associated with hearing impairment in Ardabil province. Consequently, extensive preventive programs are required to limit such factors.

Background and Aim: In view of improvement in therapeutic outcome of cancer treatment in children resulting in increased survival rates and the importance of hearing in speech and language development, this research project was intended to assess the effects of cisplatin group on hearing ability in children aged 6 months to 12 years.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, hearing of 10 children on cisplatin group medication for cancer who met the inclusion criteria was examined by recording auditory brainstem responses (ABR) using the three stimulants of click and 4 and 8 kHz tone bursts. All children were examined twice: before drug administration and within 72 hours after receiving the last dose. Then the results were compared with each other.
Results: There was a significant difference between hearing thresholds before and after drug administration (p<0.05). Right and left ear threshold comparison revealed no significant difference.
Conclusion: Ototoxic effects of cisplatin group were confirmed in this study. Insignificant difference observed in comparing right and left ear hearing thresholds could be due to small sample size. auditory brainstem responses test especially with frequency specificity proved to be a useful method in assessing cisplatin ototoxicity.

Background: Balance disorders are common in patients following stroke. There are a number of physiotherapy modalities to treat balance impairments, one of which is vibration. The effects of vibration on balance disorders after stroke have not been investigated. This case report demonstrates the short-term effects of plantar vibration on the balance impairment of a patient with stroke.

Case presentation: A 72-years-old man with right hemiplegia resulted from stroke was admitted for vibration therapy after not responding to standard rehabilitation interventions. He complained of balance problems despite walking independently. Main studied outcomes were timed up and go test and posturography. Foot sensation, ankle plantar flexor spasticity, and the passive range of ankle dorsiflexion were assessed, as well. Vibration with a frequency of 100 Hz was introduced to the sole of the affected foot for 5 minutes. After intervention, all tests were improved compared to the baselines.

Conclusion: This case showed that the vibration was effective for improving balance disorder after stroke.

Background and Aim: Specific language impiarment (SLI) is one of the most prevalent developmental language disorders its diagnosis is a problematic issue among researchers and clinicians because of the heterogeneity of language profiles in the affected population and overlapping with other developmental language disorders. The aim of this study was to review the suggested diagnostic criteria for this disorder, controversies about these criteria and identify the most accurate diagnostic methods.

Methods: Published article from 1980 to 2012 in bibliographic and publisher databases including Pubmed, Google scholar, Cochran library, Web of Science, ProQuest, Springer, Oxford, Science direct, Ovid, Iran Medex and Magiran about the diagnostic methods for discriminating preschoool children with specific language impiarment from normal developing children were reviewd in this article. These keywords were used for research: “specific language impairment”, “SLI”, “diagnosis or identification”, “standardized tests”, and “tests for language development”.

Conclusion: The results of this study show inspite of agreement of researchers and clinicians about exclusionary criteria as one basic part of the diagnosis of specific language impiarment , there is no consensus about the other part, inclusionary criteria. Different studies used different inclusionary criteria which can be divided to categories of clincal judgment, discrepancy-based criteria, standardized testing, clinical markers and markers from spontaneous speech samples. Advantages, disadvantages, and clinical applicability of each diagnostic method are discussed in this article.

Background and Aim: The different studies in normal children and those with developmental language disorders showed the relationship between language and development of theory of mind (ToM). But, there is not agreement between authors about role of language aspects (lexicon, semantic, syntax, and pragmatics) in development of theory of mind. The aim of this review article was the study of relationship of aspects of language and development of theory of mind in normal children and those with developmental language disorder.

Methods: This study was a narrative review. The Persian and English published articles during 1995 to 2012 were searched from different websites [Cochreane library, Proquest, Springer, Ebsco, Sciencedirect, PubMed, Magiran and Scientific Information Database (SID)]. Keywords included theory of mind, language, syntax, syntactic complement, semantic, lexicon and pragmatics. Then, the titles and abstracts of the related articles about relationship between language and theory of mind were selected and studied.

Conclusion: The language is the most important factor and predictor of theory-of-mind development. Although, lexicon, semantics, pragmatics and general language were important in development of theory of mind, but most of the articles had stressed the role of syntactic complements (sentences with mental or communicative verbs) in its development in normal children and children with developmental language disorders. As syntactic complements are necessary prerequisites for development of theory of mind, particularly for false belief concept, it is predicted that focus on training these aspects in children with developmental language disorders can influence on both theory of mind development and language complexity.