Effects of a Memory-Based Cognitive Rehabilitation Program on Executive Functions in Students with Hearing Impairment

The memory-basedcognitive rehabilitation program is becoming a useful and practical method to improve executive functions in students with hearing impairment and it seems that using this program has been associated with desirable outcomes. The purpose of the present research was to investigate the effectiveness of memory-basedcognitive rehabilitation program on executive functions in students with hearing impairment.

A semi-experimental study with pre-test, post-test design, and control group was conducted. The participants were 24 male children with hearing impairment selected from schools in Shahre-e-Kord city using convenient sampling. Participants were divided into experimental and control groups, each group consisting of 12 children. The experimental group received 10 sessions of memory-basedcognitive rehabilitation program, while the control group did not receive this program. The instrument used was Nejati cognitive abilities questionnaire (2013) and the data were analyzed using analysis of covariance in SPSS, version 24.

Findings showed that there was a significant increase in the mean executive function scores of the experimental group post-intervention in comparison with the control group, and the memory-basedcognitive rehabilitation program had a significant effect on the participants’’ executive functions (P<0.001).

The memory-basedcognitive rehabilitation program improved executive functions in students with hearing impairment. Therefore, based on the findings of the present research, it can be suggested that beside other educational and rehabilitation methods for students with hearing impairment, applied memory-basedcognitive rehabilitation be used, too.