[ effect of cued speech on language skills [topic maintenance, basic information and sequence events of the story] in late implanted pre-lingual hearing impaired students: the benefits of Persian cued speech]

Objective: Cochlear Implant has very positive impact on expressive language growth of children with severe impaired hearing and the effectiveness of Cued Speech has been studied in several investigations. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of using Cued Speech on topic maintenance, basic information and sequence events of the story in the late cochlear implanted prelingually hearing impaired students

Materials and Methods: This has been an experimental study and pre-test, post- test plan was used. Nine prelingually hearing impaired students who were late cochlear implanted and were between the ages of 11 and 16 years and 9 months from Loghman Cochlear implant center were selected by available sampling method. Our tool was story telling test. The Persian Cued Speech training program was carried out for 8 weeks in sixteen 60-minutes sessions. After that all students were assessed again. In this study we have used Kolmogorov - Smirnov Z-test and t-test for dependent groups

Results: Results revealed Cued Speech have positive and significant effects on topic maintenance, basic information and sequence events of the story in the late cochlear implanted pre-lingually hearing impaired students [P and le0.01]

Conclusion: Our results demonstrated that using Cued Speech for the late cochlear implanted pre-lingually hearing impaired students can be effective for their language skills

[ efficacy of group play therapy on the social skills of pre-school hearing-impaired children]

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to investigate of the efficacy of group play therapy on the social skills of pre-school hearing-impaired children

Materials and Methods: The present research was a semi-experimental study with pre-test, post-test design and control group. The participants were 30 male hearing-impaired children from pre-schools centers in Varamin and Gharchak provinces using an available method. Subjects were randomly divided into experimental and control groups, each group consisting of 15 children. The experimental group received 12 sessions of group play therapy and the control group did not. The instruments were done using the Raven coloure progressive matrices test and social skills rating scale. The data were recorded and statistically analyzed using MANCOVA

Results: The results of MANCOVA showed that group play therapy had a significant effect on the social skills of hearing-impaired children [P<0.001]. The results also revealed that group play therapy had a positive and significant effect on all subscales of social skills in these children: cooperation, self-assertiveness and self-control [P<0.001]

Conclusion: Group play therapy can improve the social skills of hearing-impaired children. It is recommended that planning play therapy for hearing-impaired children receives serious attention

Effectiveness of Emotional Intelligence Training on Communication Skills in Students with Intellectual Disabilities

Objectives: Emotional intelligence skills begin at home, and with positive interactions with parents and other children. Parents can help children recognize their emotions, name them, and learn how to respect their feelings and adapt to social situations. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of emotional intelligence training on the communication skills of students with intellectual disabilities.

Methods: This study was quasi-experimental, with a pre-test, post-test design and a control group. The sample consisted of 32 educable students with intellectual disabilities [14-18 years old].

Results: The results showed that the intervention program had created a significant difference between the scores of the experimental and control groups [P<0.05], and that the scores for communication skills were increased, both post-test and also in the experimental group follow-up [P<0.05].

Discussion: Emotional intelligence training enhanced the communication skills of students with intellectual disabilities. Teachers, professionals, and clinicians could use these training in their practices.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, communication skills, intellectual disability

Developing a bilingual "Persian cued speech" website for parents and professionals of children with hearing impairment

The use of the internet as a source of information gathering, self-help and support is becoming increasingly recognized. Parents and professionals of children with hearing impairment have been shown to seek information about different communication approaches online. Cued Speech is a very new approach to Persian speaking pupils. Our aim was to develop a useful website to give related information about Persian Cued Speech to parents and professionals of children with hearing impairment. All Cued Speech websites from different countries that fell within the first ten pages of Google and Yahoo search-engines were assessed. Main subjects and links were studied. All related information was gathered from the websites, textbooks, articles etc. Using a framework that combined several criteria for health-information websites, we developed the Persian Cued Speech website for three distinct audiences [parents, professionals and children]. An accurate, complete, accessible and readable resource about Persian Cued Speech for parents and professionals is available now

Depression and deaf adolescents: a review

Deafness is a heterogeneous condition with far-reaching effects on social, emotional, and cognitive development. Many regard themselves as members of a cultural minority who use sign language. They should not continue to be neglected in research on depression. The purpose of this article is to investigate depression among the deaf people based on researches results. We identified relevant studies by searching the computerized databases Science Direct, PsycINFO and Medline. Additional relevant studies were identified through the reference sections of studies found during the initial search. In this article we retrieved 11 articles, 8 of them indicated a higher degree of depression amongst deaf people in comparison with hearing ones. The remaining 3 articles showed no difference between two groups. In addition anxiety disorders and insomnia were the highest degrees after depression in deaf people. Mild levels of depressive symptoms are more prevalent in the deaf than in hearing students but more severe depression is not. Although there is no evidence in the literature to suggest that Deaf adults do not experience depressive symptoms, the typical methods of assessing depressive symptoms among the population are inadequate and unreliable

effectiveness of social skill training on hearing impaired students

The hearing impairment child is at risk the loneliness living and the lost of social discussion coequals partnership. The long history of social avoidance in the individuals with hearing impairment will lead to social phobia in most of them. The purpose of this research was to determine the effectiveness of social skills training on decreasing the social phobia of students with hearing impairment. In this study, students with hearing impairment, were randomly selected and the pre-test of SPIN was completed by them. The experimental group received social skills training. Post-test for SPIN were administered immediately after intervention. To evaluate participants performance after a period of one month from the end of the instruction, both groups were reassessed. Result of the follow-up scores show that after removing the effect of pre-test, there is statistically significant difference [F=11.371, p<0.001] between the scores of both group in follow-up position. Social skills training significantly decreased the social phobia in students with hearing impairment

Persian Cued Speech website from the deaf professionals' views

Increasingly people are using the internet to find information about medical and educational issues and one of the simplest ways to obtain information is internet. Persian Cued Speech is a very new system to Iranian families with deaf child and the professionals and a few educators have enough knowledge about it, so the purpose of this study was to introduce Persian Cued Speech website to deaf educators and rehabilitation professionals and assess their views about the website and their accessibility to important information through its use. The sample group was randomly selected from deaf educators and rehabilitation professionals working in different educational settings for deaf children in Tehran, our capital .They completed a questionnaire which was adopted from different website assessing questionnaires. Researchers also completed an interview with the sample group. Our findings show that from the deaf educators and rehabilitation professionals point of view, the Persian Cued Speech website was a helpful and informing website. They also wanted more pictures and videos, bigger font sizes and more practical parts. So we decide to change some parts of the website to be more usable for them. Using informational websites can be a very helpful tool in the internet area. Helpful websites are those which are more accessible, readable and appropriately designed and are user-friendly

Problem-solving skills in children with early treated phenylketonuria

This study aimed to investigate the level of problem-solving skills in 1-4 year-old children with early treated phenylketonuria [ETPKU]. This analytic, cross-sectional study was conducted on 70 1-4 year-old children referred to phenylketonuria [PKU] clinics that had been diagnosed on screening at birth and had been treated. The measurements were a demographic questionnaire, Ages and Stages Questionnaire [ASQ] and clinical assessment by a pediatrician. One hundred children were also selected randomly from Tehran's kindergartens as the control group, who also completed the above questionnaires. Data were analyzed by SPSS 19.0 software. The mean age of the children was 29.71 months in the control group and 28.51 months in the case group. There were no significant differences between the two groups regarding the type of delivery and the current and birth heights, weights and head circumferences. There was a significant difference between the two groups regarding problem-solving developmental skills [P < 0.000]. The level of problem-solving developmental skills in the children with ETPKU was lower than normal children. It seems that Iranian children with ETPKU, regardless of being on a diet, have lower problem-solving skills. It is recommended to revise their diet and treatment and also to plan programs for early detection, and to carry out interventions for developmental delays in these children

[Cued speech: full access to spoken language for the hearing impaired]

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. 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. 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.

[Employment status of the members of Tehran deaf community]

Regarding the importance of employment in social and emotional status of individuals, it would be important for the deaf. The purpose of the present study was to assess the employment status of the members of Tehran deaf community. This descriptive study was performed on all members of Tehran deaf community. A researchers-made questionnaire which had three parts [demographic information, employment status of the deaf members and their attitudes regarding employment] was used in this study. The obtained data were analyzed using descriptive methods. Majority of deaf community members were adult [ages ranging between 18 and 30]. Sixty eight of them [52.5%] were female and 53 [47.5%] were male, from our participants, 56.2% were unemployed and 43.8% were employed. Main problems were: having no access to facilities regarding their disability [14.5%], communication problems [9.4%], lower salaries because of their disability [12.4%], being far from the working place [15.4%], disproportion of working environment to their disability [11.4%], maltreatment of their coworkers [13.2%], maltreatment of their employer [12.5%] and discrimination because of their disability [11.2%], the attitudes of the deaf members were positive regarding the employment in all areas: 90% of them considered it as an essential part of life versus 10% of them mentioned not very important issue. Our findings showed that most of the deaf were supported by their family members, but not by the social facilities or their past education. The social policies should be reformed to support employment of the deaf