The study included 80 patients treated for sudden deafness over the last 5-7 years. Case history, laboratory findings, pure-tone audiogram and electronystagmography (ENG) findings were noted. If any abnormalities had been recorded in ENG studies, the studies were redone. ORL status was redefined and audiograms were obtained in all patients. When becoming ill, the 80 patients had not differed from the normal population in common cardiovascular risk factors. None of them had had signs of viral infection (paired serum samples had been taken at 2-week intervals routine examinations had been done for common viral antigens). As many as 31 of the 80 patients with acute hearing loss had had abnormalities such as spontaneous nystagmus (PN), hypoexcitability (HE) and directional preponderance (DP) in the bithermal caloric tests (+44 degrees C, + 30 degrees C) of their ENG studies. Twenty of the 31 patients still had abnormal ENG studies after 5-7 years. Only 1 subject had positional nystagmus, and none had subjective vertigo. Patients with an abnormal ENG study showed a poor recovery of the speech reception threshold, whereas those with a normal ENG study showed slightly significant (p less than 0.05) recovery.

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: Deafness is a heterogeneous disorder induced by genetic and environmental factors. It is the most common hereditary sensory-neural disorder that affects 1/1000 to 1/2000 of the newborns. More than 70% of hearing loss cases are caused by genetic disorders, 85% of which result from nonsyndromic autosomal recessive sensory-neural hearing loss. Up to now, more than 100 genes contributing in hearing loss have been determined. Alteration of these genes may result in hearing loss.
This study was performed to identify the inheritance patterns of deafness and its relation with ethnicity, gender and consanguineous marriages.
Methods: In this survey, data from 356 families affected by hearing loss and referred to welfare organization of Ahvaz during the time were collected based on sex, ethnic groups and relativeness.
Results: The results state a high frequency of autosomal recessive deafness caused by consanguineous marriages within Arab and non-Arab ethnic groups (p<0.05). But no significant difference in gender.
Conclusion: In conclusion, the high frequency of autosomal recessive deafness among the population with a high frequency of consanguineous marriages is considerable. The dominant pattern of deafness observed in this population was autosomal recessive.

Background and Aim: Having healthy non-handicapped children plays a major role in mental health of the family and decreases family and society&aposs costs. While consanguineous marriage could lead to expression of recessive genes and a variety of handicaps including deafness, the aim of present study was to scrutinize the prevalence of consanguineous marriage among parents of deaf and normal children as well as its relationship with deafness.
Methods: In this study, 467 couples parenting normal children were selected by cluster sampling from elementary, guidance and high schools of Ardabil city and 423 couples parenting disabled children were selected non-randomly among which 130 had deaf children. Descriptive statistics was used to determine the prevalence of consanguineous marriage and chi-square test to compare prevalence of consanguineous marriage among parents of normal and deaf children.
Results: Descriptive analyses showed that 80 out of 130 (61.54%) parents who had deaf children have had consanguineous marriage. Furthermore data analysis demonstrated that prevalence of consanguineous marriage was significantly higher among parents of deaf children (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Consanguineous marriage plays a major role in expression of recessive genes and could lead to development of various handicaps including deafness. Increasing couples&apos awareness about consequences of consanguineous marriage and conducting genetic counseling are indispensable.

Background and Aim: The current study has been designed based on the framework of the Stress Deafness Model (SDM), and aims at investigating native listeners&apos general perceptual sensitivity to the acoustic correlates of stress in Persian, a language with predictable stress. According to SDM, more regularity in a language implies poorer perceptual sensitivity of its native speakers, as regular stress patterns will not require lexical encoding.
Methods: The experiment was a modified method of adjustment task where subjects had to simulate stimuli played to them. A total of thirty five Persian speakers took part in the experiment and were placed in three groups based on their linguistic background. In addition to overall perceptual sensitivity, the effect of exposure to English and phonetic knowledge were also tested.
Results: Persian speakers showed a weak perception of stress correlates. It was found, however, that exposure to English will improve stress deafness among Persian natives (p<0.0001). However, the results failed to show any significant effect by phonetic knowledge. It was also shown that the duration had the most erroneous perception by participants (p=0.0001), while there was no statistically significant difference between understanding fundamental frequency clues and intensity perception by listeners.
Conclusion: Since Persian speakers showed an overall weak perception of stress correlates, the results support the predictions made by SDM.

Background and Aim: Clinicians and researchers always need standard measures for the evaluation of auditory perception and speech production in deaf children, particularly those with cochlear implants. This study addresses the reliability and validity of the Persian version of categorization of auditory performance (CAP) scale and speech intelligibility rating (SIR) in cochlear-implanted prelingual deaf children.

Methods: A total of 92 cochlear-implanted deaf children aged 1.3-15.7 years participated in the study. Test-retest reliability, inter-rater reliability, and criterion and construct validity of the scales were investigated.

Results: The obtained test-retest reliability for categorization of the auditory performance scale and speech intelligibility rating was 0.82 and 0.99 (p<0.01), respectively, whereas the suggested inter-rater reliability based on average Cohen’s kappa coefficient was 0.73 and 0.70 for the two scales (p<0.01), which appear acceptable. The concurrent validity of the scales was 0.64 and 0.69 (p<0.01). The construct validity for categorization of the auditory performance scale ranged between 0.58 and 0.74 (p<0.01), whereas the same feature for the speech intelligibility rating indicated a range between 0.66 and 0.69 (p<0.01).

Conclusion: The findings of this investigation indicated that both CAPII and SIR scales are reliable and valid instruments for the assessment of auditory perception and speech production of cochlear-implant deaf children.