Background and Aim: Hearing impairment affects all aspect of individual life, specially language and communication skills. When hearing impairment is congenital or occurs early in life, the child's ability to learn optimally through audition, will be affected. The aim of this study was to evaluate linguistic skills of preschool hearing impaired children and compare these skills with normal peers.

Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed on 38 preschool hearing impaired children that the main handicap was severe to profound hearing loss with ability to communicate orally and 28 normal children with the same cultural and social context. Twenty four non linguistic variables including age, gender, the age of entrance of preschool center, number of hearing aids, etc. were obtained by filling a questionnaire and fifteen linguistics variables including number of utterance, morphemes, correct utterance, noun phrase, ambiguous utterance, correct sentences, compound sentences, etc. were collected by some part of TOLD-P-3 test and three complementary questions. Then we compared the data from two groups.

Results: There were significant differences between number of utterance, number of correct mean length utterance, number of well-formed sentences in normal and hearing impaired group (p<0.000). There were no significant difference between unintelligible utterances, repetitive utterances and bad-formed sentences between two groups(p>0.05).

Conclusion: This study showed a severe deficit in linguistic skills in preschool hearing impaired children.

Background and Aim: Cued speech as a kind of communication method, is a system which utilizes several hand configurations and locations to supplement the normal visible manifestations of speech. This study was aimed to investigate the effects of Persian cued speech on the speech discrimination scores of hearing impaired children.
Methods: Sixteen 9-12 years old profoundly hearing impaired children were divided into two matched-groups of cases and controls. Cases were taught cued speech in a five-month period of 45-60 minutes daily therapy. Speech discrimination score test was tested pretest, post-test and three-week follow-up test in both groups. Mixed repeated measurement was used to analyze the repeated measures data.
Results: There was a significant difference between pretest (without cued speech) and the other two tests of post-test and follow-up (both with cued speech) in cases. The speech perception scores of the cases were almost completed (p=0.001) after cued speech practicing but no significant difference was seen in speech perception scores of control group.(p>0.05)
Conclusion: The results indicate that Persian cued speech is an efficient tool to increase speech discrimination scores of hearing impaired children.

Background and Aim: A system that could make speech visible to deaf people has been dreamt of for long time. Several systems have been developed during recent decades with the most popular being cued speech invented 50 years ago by Cornett (1967). The aim of this article is to review researches about cued speech and its efficacy on different language skills of hearing impaired children.
Methods: In this article we reviewed researches on cued peech and its impacts on speech and literacy of hearing impaired children. We searched Medline, Proquest and Scopus search engines with the "cued speech" keyword and read all textbooks and thesis published between 1972 and 2011. Cued speech is an oral system which makes the sounds visible and accessible. It makes speech perception much simpler and improves lip-reading skills and ability of using residual hearing in hearing impaired children.
Conclusion: Cued speech enhances children's communication and speech perception and discrimination from early ages. It improves speech and ability to benefit from cochlear implantation. The original impetus behind cued speech was to improve literacy levels of hearing impaired children and it has been found to be uniquely successful.

Background and Aim: The birth of a hearing-impaired child and raising him/her often brings special psychological feelings for parents, especially mothers who spend more time with the child. This study aimed to compare the general health status in mothers of hearing-impaired and hearing children.

Methods: This was a descriptive-analytic study. General Health Questionnaire was used to identify general health status and data were analyzed with independent-t test.

Results: The general health level of mothers of hearing-impaired children was lower than mothers of normal hearing children (p=0.01 ). The average scores of anxiety (p=0.01), depression (p= 0.01) and physical (p=0.02) symptoms and social function (p=0.01) of mothers of hearing-impaired children was higher than mothers of normal hearing ones (p=0.01).

Conclusion: Having a child with hearing impairment affects mothers’ general health status. Our findings show that it’s necessary to provide psychological and social support for mothers of hearing-impaired children.

Background and Aim: Hearing impairment can have an impact on adolescents’ quality of life and can lead to their isolation and depression. The main purpose of this research was to study the effectiveness of a mental rehabilitation program based on positive thinking skills training on increasing happiness in a group of hearing impaired girls and boys.

Methods: In this experimental study, pre- and post-test plan with a control group was used. All of the hearing impaired students (girls and boys) in all high schools of southern parts of Tehran, Iran, in year 2012-13 were our statistical research community. 48 hearing impaired girls and boys were selected by multistage sampling including stratified, purposive, and random sampling. They were randomly divided into two groups of experimental and control. Each group consists of 12 boys and 12 girls. Positive thinking skills were trained to experimental groups during eight 45-minutes sessions, twice a week. We used the Oxford happiness questionnaire to assess the level of happiness.

Results: Using analysis of covariance showed that positive thinking skills training had meaningful and positive effect on increasing happiness of hearing impaired boys and girls in the experimental groups (p<0.01). Also, the mean happiness scores of boys and girls were meaningfully different (p<0.01).

Conclusion: Positive thinking skills training increases the happiness scores of hearing impaired adolescents. So, the approach taken in this study can be considered as an appropriate method for psychological-education interventions, counseling and treatment in hearing impaired adolescent.