Background and Aim: Students with hearing impairment show delayed development of theory of mind (ToM) compared with normal children. One factor impacting development of theory of mind is parent-child interaction. The present study investigated the relationship between maternal emotional intelligence and theory of mind in students with hearing impairment.

Methods: The present study employed correlational research. 40 students with profound hearing impairment (age range: 8-14 years) and their mothers were selected to participate. Measurement instruments included the false belief task and emotional intelligence questionnaire. The questionnaire was completed by mothers. Correlational analysis and multiple regression methods were used for data analysis.

Results: Results indicated no significant correlation between the total score on false belief task and the emotional intelligence score and its components (p>0.01). Multiple regression analysis showed that maternal emotional intelligence and its components cannot predict student's scores in false belief tasks (p>0.01).

Conclusion: The results show that there is no significant correlation between maternal emotional intelligence and theory of mind in students with hearing impairment. Therefore, maternal emotional intelligence cannot predict the development of theory of mind in students with hearing impairment.

Background and Aim: Various studies indicate that deaf children compared with hearing children have problems in all aspects of emotional development, including facial expression, emotional understanding of display rules, mixed and contradictory emotions and theory of mind. This article reviews studies of impaired emotional development in children with hearing impairment.

Recent Findings: Some findings indicate that young deaf children function similar to hearing children. The difficulty in understanding display rules experienced by deaf children can be explained by appealing to their inability to adequately express emotions in emotion-eliciting contexts, as opposed to their difficulty in understanding mental states. Overall, research findings indicate that emotional understanding in various aspects and dimensions is associated with children's language abilities.

Conclusion: Results obtained show that more aspects of deaf children 's emotional development (such as interpretation and recognition of facial expression) are similar to that of their peers. However, deaf children performed more poorly in tasks which required experience in understanding display rules and theory of mind . Recent findings generally demonstrate that language plays an important role in the emotional development of children. Therefore, deaf children in comparison to hearing children are less able performers.

Background and Aim: Conversational repair skills are essential for establishing mutually successful verbal communication. Cognitive and linguistic disorders can have negative effects on these skills. Children with hearing loss have special cognitive and linguistic issues. This study was performed to contribute to the paucity of data on conversational repair strategies used by hearing impaired children.

Methods: The participants included 58 children with moderate hearing loss (38 boys and 20 girls) aged 6 to 7 from Ahvaz city. A cross-sectional study design was used. Frequency of using different types of repair strategies in ten repair situations was calculated. Scores of intelligence, memory, word finding, lexical richness, and mean length of sentences was obtained through cognitive-linguistic tests. Data was analyzed employing an independent t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient, and logistic regression.

Results: A direct correlation was observed between clarification strategy and communicative social intelligence (p=0.045). A direct correlation was observed between applying different types of conversational repair strategies and linguistic abilities in children with moderate hearing loss (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Children with moderate hearing loss (age: 6-7 years) use repetition more than any other strategy to repair conversation. One unit increase in word finding ability or in mean length of sentence predicts one unit increase in the degree of using repetition strategy.

Background and Aim: Research indicates that impaired hearing is one of the most stressful disabilities. The parenting stress involved could lead to family malfunction and improper parenting. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effects of positive parenting programs on the parenting stress of mothers with impaired hearing children.

Methods: The statistical population comprised mothers of all 7-12-year-old impaired hearing children in Tehran city. Thereafter, using the random sampling method, 24 individuals were shortlisted as research participants and were randomly assigned to two groups: control and experimental. The experimental group was trained with a positive parenting program based on the Sanders program (1993) over eight sessions. The measurement instrument was the Abidin parenting stress questionnaire.

Results: The mean score for grades in the experimental groups’ parent and child domains at the pre- and post-test stages had reduced more than that in the control group. In addition, the results of a multivariate covariance analysis indicated that positive parenting training was effective in the reduction of parenting stress scores, reinforcement, and child mood components in the child domain, and in the feelings of competence, relationships with the spouse, and role limitation components (p<0.05) in the parent domain.

Conclusion : Considering the benefits of training parents for the reduction of parenting stress of mothers with impaired hearing children, this method is recommended in all learning centers for the deaf.

Background and Aim: Hearing loss is one of the most prevalent chronic diseases in the elderly using a hearing aid to alleviate auditory impairment can positively affect their quality of life. This research aimed to determine the level of satisfaction concerning hearing aids in elderly people with hearing impairment based on the type and degree of hearing loss.

Methods: An analytic cross-sectional research design was used the sample included 40 elderly people who used hearing aids. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) age classification, participants were divided into two age groups: 65-74 years (n=20) and 75-90 years (n=20). Satisfaction levels were assessed using a standard satisfaction with amplification in daily life (SADL) questionnaire.

Results: Satisfaction levels in the 65-74 age group were significantly higher than that in the 75-90 age group (p=0.02). Participants with mixed hearing loss revealed higher satisfaction levels than participants with sensorineural hearing loss (p=0.02). On the negative effects dimension, participants with severe hearing loss exhibited significantly higher satisfaction levels than participants with moderate or moderate to severe hearing loss (p=0.01).

Conclusion: Total satisfaction mean scores were relatively high in the elderly participants . Negative features could be reduced via careful consultation regarding the aids’ amplifying capabilities and limitations in groups with moderate or moderate to severe hearing loss.

Background and Aim: The hearing defects in deaf and hearing-impaired students also affect their cognitive skills such as memory in addition to communication skills. Hence, the aim of this study was to compare visual working memory in deaf and hearing-impaired students with that in normal counterparts.

Method: In the present study, which was a causal-comparative study using the André Rey test, 30 deaf and 30 hearing-impaired students were compared with 30 students in a normal group, and they were matched based on gender, intelligence, educational grade, and socioeconomic status.

Findings: Findings show that there is significant difference between the three groups’ subjects (p<0.05). The average of the normal group was more than that of the other two groups. However, the difference between the two auditory impaired groups was not significant (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Function of deaf or hard-of-hearing students in the visual working memory task was weaker in comparison with the normal counterparts, while the two deaf and hard-of-hearing groups have similar functions. With a better identification and understanding of the factors that affect the development of this cognitive ability, we can offer new methods of teaching and reduce many of the disadvantages of this group of people in the different fields of cognitive science.