Comparison of Executive Function and Educational Satisfaction in Primary School Students with Normal Hearing and Hearing Impaired with and without Cochlear Implanted

Hearing impairment has negative consequences on different aspects of children’s development like high cognitive function, learning, and linguistic processes. The purpose of the present study was to compare executive function and educational satisfaction among normal hearing and hearing impaired primary school students with and without cochlear implant. A total of 155 primary school students, 44 with hearing impairment and without implants from special schools and 44 with cochlear implants from special and normal schools, were randomly selected. In addition, 67 normal hearing primary school student were selected using random cluster sampling from Tehran between 1393-94. Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST) and the Quality of School Life Questionnaire (QSL) were used for evaluating executive functions and educational satisfaction, respectively. The results of data analysis using ANOVA showed that there was no significant difference between the tree groups in terms of executive function, but there was a significant difference in time performance test (P=0/004). Also, there was a significant difference among the tree groups in terms of educational satisfaction (P=0/031). Hearing impaired students with and without cochlear implant had no difference with normal hearing students in terms of executive functions measured by visual test, but they spent more time in the executive function test in comparison to the normal hearing students and had less educational satisfaction.