Objective: Comparing analog and digital hearing aids reducing disability caused by hearing deficiency among moderate to severe sensorineural hearing-impaired persons.
Method and Material: This descriptive-analytic study was carried out on two groups of subjects participated in this study in some audiology clinics of hearing aid since May 2002 to October 2003. Twenty subjects wore analog hearing aids and twenty one subjects wore digital hearing aids. In this study , no subject had previous middle ear or psychological problems. APHAB questionnaire was completed before using hearing aid and 2 months after to determine benefit of hearing aid use. Results: Total score mean of APHAB inventory before and after use of analoge hearing aids were 52.215+6.420 and 32.300+3.443 respectively. Also total score mean of APHAB inventory before and after use of digital hearing aids were 54.9252+9.028 and 26.321+10.916 respectively. There was no significant difference between total mean score of APHAB inventory before and after using analog and digital hearing aids (P=0.058).While there was significant difference between total mean score of APHAB questionnaire before and after use of analog hearing aids (P<0.001) and also before and after use of digital hearing aids (P<0.001). Moreover age, gender , litracy level , occupation , degree of hearing loss and manner of hearing aid usage did not have significant effect on APHAB results. Configuration of loss had siginficant effect on aversiveness subscale before and after use of analog hearing aids (P=0.008). Previous experience and duration of hearing aid usage had significant effect on aversiveness subscale before and after use of digital hearing aids (P=0.043) and (P=0.024), respectively , while all of these three items did not have significant effect on total mean score of APHAB inventory and also total mean scores of three subscales of ease of communication , reverberation and background noise.
Conclusion: Comparing to analog hearing aid , digital one is significantly benefitial for reverberation and background noise for hearing-impaired persons , but it has no benefit for ease of communication and aversiveness that may be arised from effects of the individual expectation , psychological and personal factors.

Background and Aim: Lack of early detection of and intervention for infants hearing loss results in a significant delay in speech and language development. So auditory rehabilitation plays an important role in improving the diminished communication ability. One of the most successful auditory training approaches is the SKI-HI parent-infant program. The purpose of this study was preparation and evaluation of Farsi-Language SKI-HI program for under 3-year-old hearing impaired  children.
Materials and Methods: After translation and modification of the text of the program, fifteen under 3-year-old children with bilateral severe sensory hearing loss who were fitted with appropriate behind the ear hearing aids received intervention for 6 months. The levels of the auditory skills were measured pre and post intervention. Intervention Efficiency Index (IEI), Pretest Developmental Rate (PDR) and Proportional Change Index (PCI) were computed.
Results: The data indicated that there was a significant difference between means of IEI and PDR which were 0.87 and 0.31, respectively. PCI was 3.38 indicated that the children&aposs auditory skills developed at about 2.38 times higher rate after SKI-HI intervention than they did before.  PCI confidence interval showed that development in  the population is 1.46 to 3.30 times higher after SKI-HI intervention (with 95% probability) the rate of auditory skills.
Conclusion: The auditory training with Farsi-language SKI-HI Parent-Infant program may efficiently affect development of auditory skills of hearing impaired children.