en بیماریهای کودکان Pediatrics پژوهشي Original Article <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Tahoma;"><strong>Background and Purpose: </strong>Language learning and socialization is a natural process unique to humans. Profound hearing loss has far-reaching consequences for speech and personal-social development. This study aimed to compare the language and social skills development of normal-hearing children with hearing-impaired ones and studied the effect of hearing rehabilitation on selected developmental aspects of hearing-impaired children.<br> <strong>Materials and Methods:</strong> Of 149 children between 6 and 18 months recruited for this study, 55 girls and 65 boys were classified as normal-hearing children (NHC), 11 girls and 13 boys as non-rehabilitated hearing-impaired children (NRHIC) group, and 3 girls and 2 boys as rehabilitated hearing-impaired children (RHIC) group. The Denver developmental screening test 2 (DDST-II) evaluated their language and personal-social development. The obtained data were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests.<br> <strong>Results: </strong>The development of language between the NHC group and the RHIC (P=0.016) and NRHIC (P=0.001) groups was statistically significant (P&le;0.05). The development of personal-social skills between the NHC group and RHIC (P=0.004) and NRHIC (P=0.001) groups were statistically significant. However, the difference in these two developmental aspects, language (P=0.770) and personal social (P=0.0421), between the two hearing-impaired groups was not significant.<br> <strong>Conclusion:</strong> Delays in language and social skills development are evident in hearing-impaired children at an early age, so the age of onset of rehabilitation should be reduced as early as possible. The Denver-II screening test is recommended to evaluate the language and skills development in the health centers and centers specialized for hearing-impaired children aged 6 to 18 months.</span></span></div> Deafness, Hearing-impaired rehabilitation, Social development, Language acquisition 131 140 http://jhs.mazums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1015-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Parvin Veiskarami پروین ویسکرمی parvinvaiskarami@yahoo.com 100319475328460011163 100319475328460011163 No Department of Audiology, Shohadaye Ashayer Hospital, Lorestan University of Medical Science, Khormabad, Iran. دانشگاه علوم پزشکی لرستان -واحد شنوایی شناسی Mehdi Roozbahani مهدی روزبهانی Mehdi.roozbahani@iau.ac.ir 100319475328460011164 100319475328460011164 Yes Department of Motor Behavior, Faculty of Humanites, Borujerd Branch, Islamic Azad University, Borujerd, Iran. دپارتمان علوم رفتاری دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی- واحد بروجرد Ideh Mortazavi ایده مرتضوی idehmort@gmail.com 100319475328460011165 100319475328460011165 No Osborne College of Audiology, Salus University, Pennsylvania, United States. تورنتو -ادیولوژیست