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Background and Aim: Early communication skills in children with hearing loss depend on the quantity and quality of information received from parents. The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of early communication skills training in developing the communication skills of infants and toddlers with cochlear implants. Methods: To this end, 54 infants and toddlers at the age range of 8–24 months with sever to profound hearing loss fitted by Cochlear Implant (CI) with their mothers participated in this study. The experimental and wait list control groups had auditory verbal therapy as the main intervention after the CI; however, the experimental group received a systematic early communication skills program. All subjects were assessed using the Communication and Symbolic Behaviour Scales Developmental Profile as the pre-and post-tests. Results: Multivariate analysis of covariance indicated the effect of systematic training on the early communication development of subjects in intervention group. Conclusion: Teaching the parents how to interact with infants and toddlers with CI could improve the communication skills of the infants and therefore it’s recommended to be included in the auditory rehabilitation programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: The current study aimed to investigate the validity and reliability of the Persian version of the Infant-Toddler Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (IT-MAIS) questionnaire. Because cochlear implantation is done today at younger ages, the use of a suitable questionnaire is necessary to evaluate auditory skills and follow up the rehabilitation progress. Methods: IT-MAIS was translated according to the International Quality of Life Assessment (IQOLA) translation protocol. The content validity was performed using Lawshe method with the participation of 10 expert professionals. The questionnaire was completed for 34 parents of cochlear-implanted children before initial programming of the device, two weeks after the rehabilitation program, and finally three months later. The intraclass correlation coefficient was calculated for test-retest reliability for each ITMAIS subscale. The internal consistency reliability was analyzed using the Cronbach a coefficient. Results: The content validity ratio for all items was above 0.79, and the content validity index was obtained to be higher than 0.96. The Cronbach a for the entire questionnaire was 0.74, and for different sections of it was obtained as 0.63-0.67. A significant difference was observed between the total score of the questionnaire before and after the rehabilitation program and its sub-items (p < 0.001). Conclusion: The Persian version of the questionnaire of IT-MAIS is a valid instrument in terms of translation quality as well as reliability and validity for assessing cochlear implant user children who are younger than three years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]