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Noise measurement and social questionnaire surveys in three residential areas around Mehrabad International Airport (Tehran, Iran) were based upon randomly selected dwellings in each area. A total of 193 individuals responded and many are annoyed and dissatisfied with aircraft noise and in consequence they would like to move. Aircraft noise is the strongest negative environmental factor affecting the residents in the vicinity of Mehrabad Airport and it could be a hazard for their health.

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Background and Aim: Human’s voice is observable and measurable like his other behaviours. Investigations have shown that characteristics of voice differ in males and females and possibly in different languages. Clinically, knowing natural voice characteristics is helpful for distinguishing voice pathologies. So the purpose of this study was to measure and compare the fundamental frequency human voice.

Materials and Methods: subjects were young males and females of Iranian Fars, Turk and Kurd races. First the subjects were asked to read some Persian sentences , then their voice samples were analysed by Dr.Speech software.

Results: Fundamental frequency mean is 168±46 Hz and 120±48 Hz for females and males , respectively , which shows significant difference. There is no significant difference between fundamental frequency mean of different races.

Conclusion: There is significant difference between fundamental frequency of males and females , but this difference is not attributable to their mother tongue. Key words: voice, fundamental frequency, Iranian, Fars , Turk , Kurd.

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Background and Aim: Speech is the essential need of the social life. To acquire that, children highly rely on the normal senses and speech full environment. The normal auditory senseis the most important need. Early amplification intervention in children with hearing difficulties is advised. Cochlear implant technology provides an effective help for hearing-impaired children in recent decades. With regards to new and limited implantation services in Iran, the effects of operation age on speech and language of implanted children was not studied yet. The purpose of this study was to compare articulation errors in cochlear implanted children with different operation age.
Materials and methods: In this cross-sectional study, ten cochlear implanted children before three and eleven after four years old were evaluated. The participants were without any anatomical, visual, and intelligence abnormality and 2.5-3 years was passed from their operation. Then, by using Picture Pho-netic Test (PPT), the articulation errors of individuals were extracted and for more evaluation of the er-rors and complete of PPT, we, also used their excited connected speech by presenting pictures. By application of t-test and using SPSS software, the data was analyzed.
Results: Data analysis indicated that, there was meaningful significant difference between substitute errors and whole errors in two gropes but there was not meaningful significant difference between de-stroyed errors in two gropes.
Conclusion: The children who undergoing operation after 4 years old had severed articulation disorder than other grope. These issues indicated that the earlier operation of children will lead to improve the speech skills and reduced the articulation errors.

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Background and Aim: Internal Evaluation means assessment of abilities and potentials. To promote the quality of education, research, health and finally rehabilitation is one of the most important roles and responsibilities of the universities. Promotion of quality of the theoretical and practical education for the Audiology students provides this major with its final goal that is to serve society. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOTs) of the Audiology department and to identify the ways of diminishing weaknesses and threats.
Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on undergraduates, postgraduates, graduates, academic staff, and the director of Audiology department in 9 areas, including management flowchart, educational programs, instructional methods and curriculum models, students, educational areas and equipments, graduate, academic staff, research, and treatment. Data were collected by questionnaires. Results were analyzed descriptively and were expressed in raw and percentage.
Results: The scores of areas in two measures were as follows: management flowchart 4.36 (87.31%), educational programs 4.17 (83.58%), instructional methods and curriculum models 4.01 (80.26%), students 3.43 (68.60%), educational areas and equipment 3.60 (72.11%), from the view of undergraduates, post graduates, faculties, graduates 3.60 (72.03%), academic staff 4.03 (80.6%), research 3.52 (70.4%), and treatment 4.54 (90.80%). The highest score was, therefore, of the treatment area and the lowest belonged to the educational area and equipments. The score of the Audiology department, as the main factor was 3.89 out of 5 which was 77.88%.
Conclusion: Audiology group total score indicates the desirable status that can be promoted to the most desirable if SWOTs are considered.

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Background and Aim: Oral habits have hazardous effects on children&aposs speech which are sometimes irreversible and permanent. This study was planned to assess these oral habits among children in day-care centers of Tehran, Iran.
Methods: In this descriptive, cross-sectional study, 400 children were selected through multistage sampling from 16 day-care centers in Tehran, Iran, They were 24 to 72-month old. Bottle feeding, pacifier usage and digit sucking were determined. After interviewing parents, oral examination [using Paediatric oral skills package (POSO)] and doing standard Phonetic test, a questionnaire was completed for each child.
Results: Sixty eight had one oral habit. The most prevalent habit was digit sucking (52.9%). The prevalence of bottle feeding, both digit sucking with bottle feeding, and pacifier habit were 38.2%, 7.3% and 1.4%, respectively. There were significant relationship between digit sucking and malocclusion (p<0.001, r=0.4) and hard palate malformationand (p<0.001, r=0.39). Besides, a significant relationship between bottle feeding and  malocclusion (p<0.001, r=0.25) was conduted. Digit sucking had significant relationship with lisping, too (p<0.001, r=0.37). There was no gender priority in oral habits.
Conclusion: Oral habits cause permanent structural conversion in speech producing and oral status.

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Background and Aim: American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) established standards for neonatal hearing screening programs in 1999. The main purpose of this study was to achieve exact statistical data of this program in Ahvaz, Iran, and to compare these results with the standards of American Academy of Pediatrics.

Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive study, the data of neonatal hearing program in Ahvaz west health center from 2008 to 2011 were reviewed. Data were analysed by descriptive statistics.

Results: From 25073 neonates, 25 had hearing loss. The false positive and referral ratio to the diagnosis stage were 2.6 and 0.48 percent, respectively. 92 percent of hard of hearing infants were diagnosed before three months of life.

Conclusion: In comparison with the standards of American Academy of Pediatrics, all of the items, except two, were included completely or relatively complete. But, more efforts must be done to achieve the whole standards which are available.