Cognitive Rehabilitation Program Training on Intelligence Capacity and Cognitive Emotion Regulation in Students with Hearing Impairment

Hearing impairment is a prevalent neurosensory impairment leading to decreased life quality, isolation, social activity reduction, and rejection feeling. Accordingly, decreased intelligence capacity and cognitive emotion regulation deficits in children and adolescents with hearing impairment might sometimes increase alexithymia in them. It is important to plan appropriate training programs to improve intelligence capacity and cognitive emotion regulation strategies in children and adolescents with hearing impairment. The cognitive rehabilitation program training is one of such programs. This program pays significant attention to intelligence capacity and cognitive emotion regulation. Furthermore, cognitive rehabilitation program training could increase intelligence capacity and cognitive emotion regulation in children and adolescents with hearing impairment. This is because children and adolescents with hearing impairment encounter numerous challenges in intelligence capacity and cognitive emotion regulation. Undoubtedly, inappropriate emotional reactions lead to cognitive and emotion regulation problems in children and adolescents with hearing impairment. Therefore, the present study aimed to determine the effects of cognitive rehabilitation program training on intelligence capacity and cognitive emotion regulation in students with hearing impairment.

This was a quasi–experimental study with a pretest–posttest and a control group design. The study participants included 28 students with a hearing impairment aged 13–15 years from Hayate Tayyebeh Tarbiyat exceptional complex in Khorramabad City, Iran, in the 2018–2019 academic year. They were from the middle socioeconomic class. The study participants were selected by random sampling method and randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups, with each group consisting of 14 students. The experimental group participated in a 10–session cognitive rehabilitation training program (two 50–min sessions/week); However, the control group received no intervention and remained on the waiting list. Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) (2003) and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2006) were used for the assessment of all study participants. The WISC was completed by the researcher, and CERQ was completed by the investigated students in the pretest and posttest phases. The required data were collected through the scales before and after the training sessions. Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) was used to analyze the obtained data in SPSS. (p<0.05).

Initially, the normality of the study variables and the contingency of variance and covariance assumptions were tested. The Kolmogorov Smirnov test results indicated that all variables were normally distributed. Furthermore, Box test data confirmed the contingency of variance–covariance assumption. Accordingly, the MANCOVA assumptions were established, and MANCOVA could consequently be applied for data analysis. The MANCOVA results suggested a significant difference between the posttest scores of the experimental and control groups in terms of intellectual capacity and cognitive emotion regulation (p <0.05). MANCOVA data also revealed that cognitive rehabilitation program training significantly impacted intelligence capacity and cognitive emotion regulation in the studied samples (p<0.05). Cognitive rehabilitation program training improved intelligence capacity and cognitive emotion regulation (increase adapted strategies and decrease non–adapted strategies) in the explored students with hearing impairment. According to Eta squared, 47% of the variations of the intellectual capacity as well as 62% and 59% of variations of the adapted and non–adapted strategies variables, respectively, could be explained by the study subjects’ participation in cognitive rehabilitation program training.

The cognitive rehabilitation program training improved the intelligence capacity and cognitive emotion regulation in the investigated students with hearing impairment. In other words, applying this training program has been associated with effective and positive outcomes in the study samples. Intelligence capacity and cognitive emotion regulation scores of the control group that did not participate in cognitive rehabilitation program training demonstrated no significant improvement. Therefore, paying attention to the cognitive rehabilitation program training is essential. Moreover, planning for providing training for this type of program for children and students with hearing impairment is of particular importance.