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Background and aim: Intonation perception mainly relies on fundamental frequency changes perception that is not available for individual with profound to severe hearing loss. The aim of the present study is to investigate the perception of intonation in cochlear implanted children and compare with normal hearing children.

 Materials and methods: This study has been carried out on 25 cochlear implanted children and 50 children with normal hearing. An adult who her first language was Persian, expressed some questions and statement sentences. These sentences were playing for child and was asked him/her to determine whether it was in a question form or statement one.   

 Results: The results showed that perception of question and statement sentences intonation had significantly differences between two groups (P<0.05). Perception of question and statement sentences intonation had significantly correlation with age at implantation and duration of implant use (P<0.05).

 Conclusion: According to the findings of the current study and previous studies, cochlear implant has some deficits in facilitating the perception of intonation. However, this limitation has been compensated partly for early surgery. Thus, speech language pathologists should consider intervention of intonation in treatment program of cochlear implanted children.  

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Background and Aim: Reading skill is necessary for academic achievement, that deaf children have problems in this skill due to hearing impairment. Use of cochlear implant can improve auditory inputs. The aim of this study was to investigate the reading skills of children with cochlear implants and comparing that with normal ones.

Materials and Methods: This descriptive - analytic study was done on 24 children with cochlear implant and 24 normal ones that was selected from second and third grades students of Tehran primary schools. Children's reading performance was assessed by Nama reading test and the data were analyzed using T-test, linear regression and Pearson correlations.

Results: The results showed that the means of reading scores of normal children were significantly greater than the cochlear implanted ones (P<0.01). Also, there was a significant relationship between reading skills and period of cochlear implant (P<0.01).

Conclusion: Cochlear implanted children showed weaker performance in reading skills than normal ones due to less access to auditory and Phonological information. It seems that early surgery and cochlear implant before the age of language learning can be partially compensated reading defects of deaf children.

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Background and Aim: Intonation has important roles on increase in intelligibility and conveyance correct meaning especially in conversational speech. Recognition of intonation correlates with three acoustic parameters: fundamental frequency, intensity and duration. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the acoustic correlation of intonation and intelligibility of speech in children with cochlear implant (CI) and compare with normal hearing (NH) children. 

Materials and Methods: This study has been carried out on 25 cochlear implant children and 25 children with normal hearing in primary school age ranges.Ten pictures were shown to children and statement and question sentences were elicited from them. To investigation of intelligibility, produced sentences were perceptually judgment by seven speech therapists and were scored by five point rating value. Acoustic correlationwere determined using Praat software.    

Results: The results showed that there were significantly difference between two groups in each of acoustic correlations (P<0.05). Intelligibility scores of CI children were significantly lower than ones of NH children (P<0.05). There were significantly correlation between intonation and intelligibility scores, also between intelligibility and duration of implant use (P<0.05).

Conclusion: According to the findings of the present study, cochlear implant children's performance in using of acoustic correlation of intonation is lower than normal hearing peers that results in inappropriately intonation. Inappropriately intonation can be the cause of low intelligibility in cochlear implant children. Thus, intervention of intonation should be considered in treatment program of cochlear implant children.   

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Background and Aim: Theory of mind as a cognitive component is the foundation of our ability to explain or predict the behavior of ourselves and others which is done through the attribution of mental status. This ability damaged in deaf children and its development is fast in girls. The aim of this study was to study theory of mind in 5-6 years cochlear implant children and its relation with gender and age of cochlear implant (CI).

Materials and Methods:  This study is descriptive and cross-sectional. Eighteen Farsi speaking children CI children and 18 normal development children aged 5-6 were participated in this study. The normal children were selected from living area of CI children. They were selected through available and easy sampling method. These children had no sensory or speech disorders. The basic theory of mind was tested in these children.

Results: Theory of mind was significantly different in both groups (p = 0.00). The comparison between girls and boys did not show significant difference in normal (p= 0.321) and CI children (p =0.231). There was no significant relationship between the age at CI and theory of mind scores (p=0.100).

Conclusion: Hearing impairment has influence on basic theory development in CI children. Age of implantation and gender had no effect on development of theory of mind.

Keywords: Theory of mind, Cochlear implant, Farsi language.