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Background and Aim: Stress is the source of many problems in human-kind lives and threatens people&aposs life constantly. Having hearing-impaired child, not only causes stress in parents, but also affects their marital satisfaction. The purpose of this study was comparing the stress and marital satisfaction status between the normal and hearing-impaired children&aposs parents.
Methods: This was a causal-comparative study. Eighty parents of normal children and 80 parents of hearing-impaired children were chosen from rehabilitation centers and kindergartens in city of Tabriz, Iran by available and clustering sampling method. All parents were asked to complete the Friedrich&aposs source of stress and Enrich marital satisfaction questionnaires.
Results: Parents of hearing-impaired children endure more stress than the normal hearing ones (p<0.001). The marital satisfaction of hearing-impaired children&aposs parents was lower than the parents of normal hearing children, too (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Having a hearing-impaired child causes stress and threatens the levels of marital satisfaction. This requires much more attention and a distinct planning for parents of handicap children to reduce their stress.

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Background and Aim: About 1.5 percent of exceptional children suffer from impaired hearing and this factor affects the teaching and learning process. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of frequency of knowledge of results (KR) on the learning of children with hearing impairment.

Methods: Twenty-four individuals with hearing impairment with the mean age of 10.56 with SD 2.53 years (range: 7-14 years) were divided into three homogenous groups according to their records after pre-test. They practiced for eight sessions according to mentioned ways (feedback of 0%, 50% and 100%). The acquisition, learning and translation tests were run. MANOVA with repeated measures and ANOVA were used to analyze the data from the acquisition, retention and transition tests.

Results: All groups progressed during training and at various stages (acquisition, retention and transition). However, the results of the comparison between means of the three training groups showed significant differences in the acquisition process (p=0.008), learning (p=0.001) and transition (p=0.035). This means that feedback training groups (100%) had better performance in acquisition process, and also in retention and transition (50%).

Conclusion: According to the results of this study, too much feedback interferes with learning of tasks in individuals with hearing impairment and feedback (50%) had better learning. This finding shows that rules regarding feedback also affect the people with hearing impairment.

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Background and Aim: Patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) may develop hearing and balance disorders as a result of the immune-mediated inner ear damage. Vestibular evoked myogenic potential (VEMP) is a new vestibular test assesses the vestibulospinal tract. Balance disorders such as endolymphatic hydrops may occur as a result of perisaccular deposition of immune complexes in these patients. Although the vestibular system abnormality in the patients has been demonstrated, the function of the part of vestibular system including vestibulospinal tract has not been investigated so far. This study aimed to compare the vestibular evoked myogenic potentials between patients with inactive stage of systemic lupus erythematosus and normal individuals.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, vestibular evoked myogenic potential was recorded between 26 healthy subjects and 20 patients with lupus erythematosus in inactive stage of disease aged 20 to 50 years old, using 500 Hz-tone bursts at 95 dB nHL.

Results: Vestibular evoked myogenic potentials responses were present in all (100%) of the participants. There was no significant difference in mean peak to peak amplitude and assymetry ratio between two groups. The mean p13 and n23 latencies were significantly higher in patients (p<0.05). Duration of disease had no effect on test parameters.

Conclusion: According to the prolonged latency of vestibular evoked myogenic potentials response in patients with lupus erythematosus , lesions in the retrolabyrinthine, especially in the vestibulospinal tract is suspected. Due to small sample size, there is no possibility for generalizing this result to all patients with lupus lupus erythematosus .

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Background and Aim: Patients with type I diabetes mellitus commonly complain about dizziness, floating sensation, tinnitus, weakness, and sweating. The aim of this study was comparing vestibular evoked myogenic potentials (VEMPs) between these patients and normal people.

Methods: Twenty-four patients with type I diabetes mellitus and twenty-four healthy volunteers with the age range of 15-40 years were enrolled in this study. A tone burst of 500 Hz, with the intensity of 95 dB nHL, was delivered through a insert earphone and vestibular evoked myogenic potential was recorded. The t-test was used to compare the results between the two groups. To investigate the effect of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) on VEMP responses (latency, absolute and relative amplitude), the regression analysis was used.

Results: The mean p13 and n23 latency were significantly more in patients with type Ι diabetes mellitus (for P13 latency, p=0.013 in right and p=0.010 in left ear, and for n23 latency, p<0.001 in right and p=0.005 in left ear). There was no significant difference between two groups in absolute and relative amplitude and prevalence of the VEMP (p>0.050). There was no correlation between VEMPs and HbA1c in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Prolonged latencies of the VEMP in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus suggest lesions in the retrolabyrinthine, especially in the vestibulospinal tract. Nevertheless, due to the limited number of examined samples, further investigation with more patients should be performed.

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Background and Aim: Cervicogenic dizziness is induced by a specific neck position and the earth’s gravity has no effect on provoking of it. The precise incidence of cervicogenic dizziness is not certain but, 20-58% of patients following sudden head injuries experience its symptoms . In this article, the etiology, diagnosis and treatment of cervicogenic vertigo is discussed.

Methods: At first, articles of cervicogenic dizziness from electronic databases of Google scholar , PubMed, Scopus, Ovid and CINAHL were searched from 1987 up to 2012. Then, the articles in them vertigo, disequilibrium or nystagmus were consistent with neck disorders were searched.

Conclusion: Articles with title of cervicogenic vertigo (cervical vertigo) were limited. Clinical researches about cervicogenic vertigo up to now implicate on several points all signify that we cannot diagnose it certainly and there is not any specific single test for that. Recently, smooth pursuit neck torsion test (SPNTT) has introduced for diagnosis of cervicogenic vertigo that is not valid yet. There is no protocol for diagnosis of cervicogenic vertigo and diagnosis is often based on limited clinical experiences of clinicians. Physiotherapy, medication and manual therapies are options for treatment but there is no distinct and effective treatment for it and in just one article, a combination of treatments for cervicogenic vertigo as a protocol has recommended.

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Background and Aim: An imbalance between phonatory subsystems may lead to disturbing phonatory muscular balance and consequently voice disorders. Based on theoretical issues, criterion-based laryngeal manual therapy, as a novel treatment method which is supported by classical laryngeal manual therapy, can improve voice quality using manual maneuvers combined with phonatory tasks. The present study aimed to report the treating effects of this method on hyperfunctional voice disorders.

Methods: Twenty adult participants with hyperfunctional voice disorders by the least three months history of voice disorder were selected. The participant’s voices were assessed multidimensionally using acoustic, audio-pecreptual and stroboscopic assessments before and after treatment.

Results: There were a decrease in jitter (p=0.003) and shimmer (p<0.001) and also, increase in harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR) (p<0.001) of vowel /a/ after treatment. Besides, there was an increase in harmony to noise ratio (p=0.009) and decrease in jitter (p=0.020) of vowel /i/, too. There were not significant changes in shimmer amount of vowel /i/ (p=0.170) after treatment. There were highly significant changes in all aspects of audio-perceptual (p<0.001) and videostroboscopic (p<0.001) parameters.

Conclusion: Using voice-based laryngeal manual therapy can be a treatment method in handling hyperfunctional voice disorders.

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Background and Aim: Developing appropriate curriculum for the education of deaf children depends on identifying the needs of this group. We aimed to examine educational rehabilitating needs of hearing-impaired children from the point of view of their parents.

Methods: In this descriptive survey study, data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire completed by 64 parents of deaf children.

Results: Parents expressed that fitness of training with the students in school, willingness to participate in the program, and the use of a uditory-verbal therapy as a good way were the main notification preferences to families of hearing-impaired children, exceptional centers, and advertisements. They emphesied that lack of appropriate facilities, children's pertinacity, and their lack of cooperation prevented the implementation of training programs and curriculum in educational centers and home. Good verbal communication and speech was as the parents' first priority expectation of their child at the end of course. There was a significant difference between parents' opinions about the educational needs and rehabilitation (p<0.05). No significant difference was seen between the parents' suggestions about educational problems of hearing-impaired children (p>0.05). Also, there was no significantly association between the gender of child or the educational level of parents with the parents' view.

Conclusion: It seems that parents should be supported by training workshops and consulting. Also, most of the children in this study were trained auditory-verbally and the results do not mean that other educational and rehabilitation methods have not the discussed characteristics.

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Background and Aim: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurological disorder resulting from significant decrease of dopamine in the brain. The main and most common symptom of speech disorder associated with Parkinson’s disease, which is kind of dysarthria, is reduction in speech intelligibility. Since this disorder represents damages to acoustic aspects, researchers are attracted to study the relationship between these two disorders. In this study, we assessed the comparison of speech vowels between normal people and patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 18 voice samples of patients with Parkinson’s disease and the same number of samples from normal people in a voiceless environment were recorded and analyzed by Praat software. Data analysis was performed by independent samples and Mann-Whitney tests.

Results: All variables investigated in two groups showed significant differences. In adults with Parkinson’s disease , F1-F0 in low vowels showed a considerable reduction in respect to normal people (p <0.001). In addition, F2-F1 in high vowels represented a significant decrease in these patients (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The results indicate that Parkinson’s disease affects formant frequency in patients compared with normal people. Reduction in speech intelligibility can be accurately measured using acoustic procedure.

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Background and Aim: Omega-3 fatty acid have structural and biological roles in the body 's various systems . Numerous studies have tried to research about it. Auditory system is affected a s well. The aim of this article was to review the researches about the effect of omega-3 on auditory system.

Methods: We searched Medline , Google Scholar, PubMed, Cochrane Library and SID search engines with the "auditory" and "omega-3" keywords and read textbooks about this subject between 19 70 and 20 13.

Conclusion: Both excess and deficient amounts of dietary omega-3 fatty acid can cause harmful effects on fetal and infant growth and development of brain and central nervous system esspesially auditory system. It is important to determine the adequate dosage of omega-3.

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Background and Aim: Concerning the important role of parents of hearing-impaired children in auditory-verbal therapy, this study mainly focused on preparing a Persian version of the “Parental needs questionnaire” and analyzing its validity and reliability.

Methods: First, the original English version of the questionnaire “the needs of hearing-impaired Children’s Parents in Auditory-Verbal Therapy” translated to Persian, based on the approved translation protocol of International Quality of Life Assessment by world health organization. Then, the Persian version presented to seven experts for validating the content and their feedbacks were applied into the questionnaire. Finally, the questionnaire presented to parents of 51 hearing-impaired children who attend in auditory-verbal therapy, and the collected results were analyzed statistically.

Results: The overall mean of content validity index in 32 items of the questionnaire was 0.87. The overall Cronbach’s alpha of this questionnaire was 0.86 in the test and 0.99 in the re-test phases.

Conclusion: Based on the obtained results, the Persian version of the questionnaire has a satisfactory content validity and reliability and could be used in clinics and medical centers for analysis of parental needs.

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Background and Aim : Nasalization of a vowel refers to the addition of nasal resonance to the vocal tract transfer function. Also, vowel nasalization occurs because of coarticulation. Coupling of the nasal resonating space to the oropharyngeal cavity alters the vocal tract formants in complex ways. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of nasalization on /a/ vowel formants in before and after nasal consonant.

Methods: In current cross-sectional study, voice samples of 60 normal children ranging the age of four-nine years were investigated. Participants were asked to repeat / ʔ ama/ three times and vowel /a/ after presentation of an auditory model. Then, obtained samples were analyzed using Praat 5.3.13 . Average of F₀, F₁, F₂ and F₃ were calculated for /a/ comes before and after /m/ in production of / ʔ ama/ over three trials.

Results: There were statistically significant differences of F₁, F₂ and F₃ between / a/ which proceeds nasal consonant and /a/ follows nasal consonant , the before nasal consonant /a/ versus single /a/ and the after nasal consonant /a/ versus single /a/ (p=0.001 for all).

Conclusion : F₁, F₂ and F₃ in /a/ before nasal consonant affected by anticipatory nasal coarticulation and in /a/ after nasal consonant affected by carry-over nasal coarticulation . This study showed nasal coarticulation and nasalization result in decreasing F₁, F₂ and F₃ in /a/ vowel.

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Background and Aim: Dyslexia is the most common learning disability. One of the main factors have role in this disability is auditory perception imperfection that cause a lot of problems in education. We aimed to study the effect of auditory perception training on reading performance of female students with dyslexia at the third grade of elementary school.

Methods: Thirty-eight female students at the third grade of elementary schools of Khomeinishahr City, Iran, were selected by multistage cluster random sampling of them, 20 students which were diagnosed dyslexic by Reading test and Wechsler test, devided randomly to two equal groups of experimental and control. For experimental group, during ten 45-minute sessions, auditory perception training were conducted, but no intervention was done for control group. An participants were re-assessed by Reading test after the intervention (pre- and post- test method). Data were analyed by covariance test.

Results: The effect of auditory perception training on reading performance (81%) was significant (p<0.0001) for all subtests execpt the separate compound word test.

Conclusion: Findings of our study confirm the hypothesis that auditory perception training effects on students' functional reading. So, auditory perception training seems to be necessary for the students with dyslexia.

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Background and Aim: Cerebrovascular accident is a neurological disorder involves central nervous system. Studies have shown that it affects the outputs of behavioral auditory tests such as dichotic auditory verbal memory test. The purpose of this study was to compare this memory test results between patients with cerebrovascular accident and normal subjects.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 20 patients with cerebrovascular accident aged 50-70 years and 20 controls matched for age and gender in Emam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran, Iran. Dichotic auditory verbal memory test was performed on each subject.

Results: The mean score in the two groups was significantly different (p<0.0001). The results indicated that the right-ear score was significantly greater than the left-ear score in normal subjects (p<0.0001) and in patients with right hemisphere lesion (p<0.0001). The right-ear and left-ear scores were not significantly different in patients with left hemisphere lesion (p=0.0860).

Conclusion: Among other methods, Dichotic auditory verbal memory test is a beneficial test in assessing the central auditory nervous system of patients with cerebrovascular accident. It seems that it is sensitive to the damages occur following temporal lobe strokes.

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Background and Aim: Subjective tinnitus etiology has not been fully understood. Recently, in normal hearing subject one of the tinnitus theories, more specifically the medial olivocochlear tract, is related to the dysfunction of the efferent auditory system. The aim of this study was to determine the potential contribution of a defective cochlear efferent innervations to the chronic tinnitus in patients with normal hearing and determine the relation between tinnitus loudness and the amount of suppression of the transient evoked otoacoustic emission. Methods: This study was conducted on 20 tinnitus patients aged between 20-45 years and 20 controls matched for age and gender in School of Rehabilitation, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Transient otoacoustic emission testing without and with contralateral white noise at 55 and 65 dB was performed on each subject. Results: The amplitudes of the emissions in the two groups was significantly different (p=0.001), but no correlation between tinnitus loudness and the amplitudes of the emissions in the presence (p=0.3) and absence (p=0.06) of contralateral noise. Conclusion: The suppression of the transient evoked otoacoustic emission by contralateral white noise did not reach statistically significant levels in tinnitus patients while the amplitude in control group reduced significantly.

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Background and Aim: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the central nervous system diseases can be associated with a variety of symptoms such as hearing disorders. The main consequence of hearing loss is poor speech perception, and temporal acuity has important role in speech perception. We evaluated the speech perception in silent and in the presence of noise and temporal acuity in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Methods: Eighteen adults with multiple sclerosis with the mean age of 37.28 years and 18 age- and sex- matched controls with the mean age of 38.00 years participated in this study. Temporal acuity and speech perception were evaluated by random gap detection test (GDT) and word recognition score (WRS) in three different signal to noise ratios.

Results: Statistical analysis of test results revealed significant differences between the two groups (p<0.05). Analysis of gap detection test (in 4 sensation levels) and word recognition score in both groups showed significant differences (p<0.001).

Conclusion: According to this survey, the ability of patients with multiple sclerosis to process temporal features of stimulus was impaired. It seems that, this impairment is important factor to decrease word recognition score and speech perception.

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Background and Aim: One of the non-pathological factors affect otoacoustic emissions is body position. In the present study, the effect of side-lying position on evoked otoacoustic emission properties and related existing assumptions were investigated.

Methods: The cross-sectional study was performed on 42 adults aged 18-25 years. The results of Transient-evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs) test were recorded and analyzed in sitting, supine, and side-lying (Ipsi and Contra) positions to compare the total response level, whole wave reproducibility, signal to noise ratio in frequencies of 1 to 5 KHz, and the lasting time of the test.

Results: Changing of the body position had a significant effect on total response level, whole wave reproducibility, and lasting time of the test (p<0.010) while this effect on signal to noise ratio was just found at 1 KHz (p<0.001). The highest total response level and lowest lasting time of the test values were observed in side-lying (contra) position (p<0.050).

Conclusion: Side-lying position (contra) is the best position for the TEOAEs test. The results of this study partly confirm intracranial pressure change hypothesis that intracochlear fluid pressure increase in the auditory system although there are contradictions in this field.

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Background and Aim: Several studies have demonstrated deficits in rapid naming in dyslexic readers however the extent of deficit is different in various orthographies. This study was intended to survey the naming speed in Persian children with dyslexia.

Methods: Rapid automatized naming (RAN) task of 19 children with dyslexia were compared with 31 nondyslexic children. Participants were selected from the students of the second grade of primary schools in Tehran city, Iran, with normal intelligence [intelligence quotient]. Nondyslexic children were at the age of 7.7 to 8.7 years (mean=7.6) and dyslexics were 7.8 to 9.4 years old (mean=8.1). Reading accuracy and speed were assessed by text reading (Diagnostic Reading Test), and high frequency word, low frequency word and nonword reading (Reading and Dyslexia Test).

Results: Dyslexic readers needed more time than non-dyslexics when naming objects (p<0.001), numbers (p=0.001) and letters (p<0.001). The mean of dyslexics z-scores were -1.98 on objects, -1.96 on numbers and -3.35 on letters. 42% of dyslexics did not show any deficit on rapid automatized naming task. All of the subtests were correlated to reading speed (p<0.050), but among subtests of rapid automatized naming task, only letter naming was correlated to reading accuracy (p<0.050).

Conclusion: More than half of dyslexics cases showed an apparent deficit in naming speed (objects, numbers and letters), which was more evident at letters. Naming speed was related to reading accuracy and reading speed although the relationship was stronger with the second one.

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Background and Aim: Teachers are a large group of professional voice users that several risk factors and voice demands causes various voice complaints among them. As the voice is multidimensional, the aim of this study was acoustic and perceptual measurement of teachers’ voice and comparing the findings between two groups with many and few voice complaints.

Methods: Sixty female teachers of high school in Sari, north of Iran, were chosen by available sampling to participate in this cross-sectional study. According to a voice complaints questionnaire, 21 subjects located in few voice complaints and 31 in many voice complaints group. After a working day, subjects completed a voice self-assessment questionnaire. Also, teachers’voice were recorded during three tasks including sustained vowels /a/ and /i/, text reading and conversational speech. Acoustic parameters were analyzed by Praat software and 2 speech-language pathalogists performed auditory-perceptual assessment by GRBAS ( Grade, Roughness, Breathiness, Asthenia, Strain ) scale.

Results: Comparing of the voice self-assessment between the two groups demonstrated statistically significant difference (p<0.05) however results of the acoustic and auditory-perceptual measurement did not show significant diffrence.

Conclusion: Despite prevalent voice problems in teachers, there are various conditions in terms of complaints and assessments methods. In this study, only a remarkable deviation documented in the client-based assessments in many voice compliants group in comparison with few voice compliants, which would be probably related to different individual’s perception of voice problem between two groups. These results support paying attention to self-assessments in clinical process of voice problems.

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Background and Aim: Hearing is one of the most vital sensational abilities. Learning, which is the most basic ability for human compatibility to mental development, is affected by hearing ability. The main goal of this article was to review the effect of hearing impairment on educational achievement of hearing-impaired students, especially in the field of basic learning skills (reading, writing, and mathematics).

Methods: In this article, the researches on the effect of hearing impairment on educational achievement were reviewed. There were 37 articles extracted from different databases such as Iran Medex, Scopus, PubMed, Magiran, Iran Journal, Google Scholar, and 12 credible books published from 1944 to 2013. In order to search in these databases, educational achievement and other related keywords were used.

Conclusion: Hearing impairment affects listening skills, which is a mental process and is known as the first lingual skill. Subsequently, other lingual skills and learning abilities like educational achievement are affected as well. In order to decrease the educational gap in hearing-impaired students, it is very important to interfere in early stages and use of presentation methods to improve lingual skills in educational system.

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Background and Aim: Some evidence suggests that hearing impairment has negative effect on psychological characters of hearing-impaired adolescences and they are more vulnerable to mental health problems than their hearing peers are. This was a comparative study of social skills, life satisfaction and external and internal locus of control in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired students.

Methods: T his multi-stage random sampling method consisted of 50 students with hearing impairment (boy and girls) and 50 matched normal-hearing students. The participants completed Matson evaluation of social skills with youngster, students life satisfaction, and Levenson multidimensional locus of control scales.

Results: The results of multivariate analysis of variance showed statistically meaningful differences in social skills , life satisfaction and locus of control between the two groups (p=0.002 for all).

Conclusion: Social skills in normal-hearing students were higher than students with hearing impairment and locus of control in normal student was more internally. Training the parents and school-staff on development of locus of control and making it more internally in hearing-impaired students is suggested.