Background and Aim: Early diagnosis of hearing loss lead to early intervention and improvement of developmental skills of children with hearing loss. The present study aimed to determine the mean age of hearing loss diagnosis and cochlear implantation (CI) in hearing impaired children and to compare the age of performing cochlear implantation in children who were identified by newborn hearing screening with those who were not.
Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 96 children with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss who received cochlear implantation in Amir-e-Alam cochlear implantation center between the years 2008 and 2010. For data gathering, we assessed subjects&apos medical archives, interviewed with their parents and took medical history including demographic information, birth history and hearing loss history.
Results: Mean age of hearing loss suspicion, diagnosis, hearing aids administration, Initiation of rehabilitation program, performing cochlear implantation and mean age when cochlear implantation was utilized were 6.73 (SD=5.79), 9.35 (SD=5.79), 13.41 (SD=6.10), 16 (SD=6.36), 41.25 (SD=11.12), and 42.15 (SD=11.00) months, respectively. There was statistically significant difference between them (p<0.05). 43.8% of hearing impaired children had been identified by newborn hearing screening. There was statistically significant difference between cochlear implantation operation age of children who were identified by newborn hearing screening with those who were not (p<0.0001).
Conclusion: In spite of notable reduction in the age of hearing loss diagnosis and intervention during recent years, compared to international indices it is still tardy. Conducting newborn hearing screening can significantly reduce these ages.

Background and Aim: Time compressed speech test is one of the most common types of monaural central auditory processing tests assesses the temporal resolution. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the impact of compression rate and sex on results of this test among the young individuals with normal hearing.

Methods: The Persian version of time compressed speech test with six lists of 25 monosyllabic words was prepared in three compression rates of 0, 40 and 60 percent. 36 young people with normal hearing and age range of 18 to 30 years were assessed with time compressed speech test in the most comfortable level in each ear separately. Then scores were compared between two ears, genders and three compression rates.

Results: There was a significant difference between word recognition scores of three compression rates (p<0.0001). Significant difference was revealed between word recognition scores of both ears, just in the 60% compression rates. No significant difference was found between the word recognition scores of the two genders.

Conclusion: Word recognition scores decreases with increase of the presentation rate of speech stimuli. Time compressed speech test accompany with other audiologic tests can be used to examin the auditory temporal processing and speed of speech processing as a test battery.