مجله پژوهش در علوم توانبخشی
سال دوازدهم شماره 6 (1395)

Using advanced hearing amplification devices such as hearing aids and cochlear implants (CI) may have multiple effects on different aspects of life of individuals with hearing loss. The purpose of this study was to compare social skills in 6-9-year-old children with CI with those with hearing aids.
In this cross-sectional study, the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters (MESSY) and Test of Language Development (TOLD-3) were used to evaluate social behaviors and language development in 118 children with hearing impairment (58 with CI and 60 with hearing aids) in Shiraz, Iran. The collected data were analyzed using MANCOVA.
By controlling the language development level, the results showed a significant difference between the two groups in terms of social skills (P Children with CI experience more problems in peer relationships, and educational and treatment interventions are necessary in this regard.

Recently, the use of artificial turf has been increased in many parts of the world. However, the effects of artificial turf on the risk of injuries are still debated in literature and published papers have reported contradictory data. Thus, the aim of this study was to compare the risk of injury on artificial turf and natural grass among young Iranian football players
In this study, 35 teams (980 players) from the youth league of Iran participated. All soccer-related injuries, number of hours of practice sessions and matches, and type of grass during the study period were reported prospectively by the coaches and medical staff. Injuries which occurred during exercise or matches and due to which the player could not take part in the exercise or match of the following day were recorded. The medical team and coaches of both teams were asked to record the players’ injuries in the related form.
During the 7 months of the study, 26000 hours of player exposure and 118 soccer-related injuries we recorded. Poisson distribution showed that the overall injury rate on natural grass (4.4 injuries/1000 hours) was significantly lower than the overall injury rate on artificial turf (7.64 injuries/1000 hours) (P According to the study results, it is suggested that coaches and young players be more careful about the higher incidence of injuries on artificial grass and measures be taken to prevent injuries on artificial turf.

Exercise therapy is a supplementary method for the rehabilitation of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of an 8-week balance, resistance, and combined (balance-resistance) exercise program on balance, gait, and quality of life (QOL) in women with MS.
In the present study, 30 women with MS (mean ± standard deviation of age: 34.6 ± 4.1) were randomly divided into balance, resistance, and combined exercise groups. The Berg Balance Scale, six-minute walk test (6MWT), Multiple Sclerosis Quality of Life-54 (MSQOL-54) questionnaire, and the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) were used, respectively, to evaluate balance, gait, and QOL. Patients underwent 3 separate intervention protocols for 8 weeks. The ANOVA, Tukey’s post hoc test, and paired t-test were used for statistical analysis (P Balance and resistance exercises improved balance and resistance and combined exercises improved gait, but they did not significantly affect the patients’ QOL.
It can be concluded that balance and resistance exercises have a positive effect on balance and combined and resistance exercise has positive effects on gait; thus, they can be recommended as a supplementary rehabilitation intervention for women with MS.

This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a comprehensive spinal muscle training protocol with and without functional electrical stimulation in elderly with functional kyphosis.
45 women and men with functional hyperkyphosis (kyphosis angle equal to or greater than 40 degrees) were randomly divided into three equal groups of control, and comprehensive spinal muscle training protocol with and without functional electrical stimulation. Before and after workouts, all the subjects were evaluated for kyphosis angle (using X-ray Cobb). Then, they did the exercises for eight weeks, three sessions of 45 minutes per week with and without functional electrical stimulation. Data were analyzed using paired-t and analysis of covariance tests to evaluate the in-group and inter-group differences.
There was a significant difference in the angle of kyphosis between the comprehensive spinal muscle training protocol with and without functional electrical stimulation compared to control group (P According to our findings, comprehensive spinal muscle training protocol can improve kyphosis angle and prevent the kyphosis complications in elderly patients; it can be used along with other treatment programs.

There are many negative factors in patients with cerebral palsy that cause these patients to deviate from normal walking patterns. The ability to walk is as one of the criteria for determining independence in daily activities of patients with cerebral palsy. Thus, the investigation of kinematic characteristics of walking (steps width and length, and velocity and frequency of stepping) has been considered by researchers. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of chair training on steps width and length in patients with cerebral palsy.
40 men and women with paraplegia were equally divided into 2 groups of control and experiment. Before and after 8 weeks of chair training, kinematic parameters of steps length and width were measured using three-dimensional motion analysis system (Motion Analysis). Mixed repeated measure ANOVA test at the significance level of P The steps length and width improved after 8 weeks of chair training (P = 0.001). There were significant differences in steps length (P = 0.020) and steps width (P = 0.042) between the groups.
It seems that 8 weeks of chair training can improve steps length and width among adults with paraplegia. Chair exercises can be used to increase steps length and decrease steps width during walking for adults with paraplegia.

Final fixation prior the initiation of movement is called quiet eye (QE). Research has shown that quiet eye components are related to high level of expertise and performance. The purpose of study was to examine the relationship between the quiet eye and motor performance in children with developmental coordination disorder.
In this descriptive-correlation study, 30 children at the age of 7 to 14 years were selected via multiple clustering sampling in Isfahan City, Iran. Participants were performed throwing and catching task to 10 trials. The data were recorded by an eye-tracking device when participants performing the desired task. We used Shapiro-Wilk test to determine the normality of data and Pearson correlation coefficient to analyze the relationship between quiet eye and motor performance.
There was significant negative correlation between catching performance and onset of quiet eye (r = -0.838, P The result of this study revealed that the quiet eye can be considered as a predictor of motor performance in children with developmental coordination disorder.

This study was performed to compare the implicit motor sequence learning in children with and without developmental coordination disorder.
To compare the implicit motor learning, serial reaction time task (SRT) was designed and used in C programming environment. In this study, 24 participated children were divided into two equal groups of with and without developmental coordination disorder; they practiced 10 blocks of SRT task during the two days with an interval of 24 hours. At the beginning of the test, no explanation was given to learners about the appearance of stimuli and motor learning took place implicitly. Data were analyzed using independent-t and ANOVA tests.
There was no significant difference between the two groups of children with and without developmental coordination disorder in speed (P = 0.235) and precision (P = 0.072) components. However, comparing the between subjects effects during blocks of motor sequence acquisition phase (indicating) significant differences between children with and without developmental disorder in both speed and accuracy variable (P > 0.001).
Although children with developmental coordination disorder have difficulties in acquisition and learning of everyday motor skills, their implicit motor sequence is intact. Therefore, in the process of teaching and rehabilitation of children with developmental coordination disorder, we can take advantage from implicit learning.

The term channel in cochlear implant systems refers to the number of stimulation sites within the inner ear or cochlea that determines the range of frequencies or pitches. Unlike single-channel cochlear implant, a multi-channel cochlear implant system divides the incoming signal into various frequency bands, and then, transmits it to various stimulation areas within the inner ear. Having more stimulation sites entails two main goals: 1- As the auditory nerve fibers in the cochlea are tonotopically organized, higher number of electrodes leads to better frequency separation; 2- The areas in the cochlea with inappropriate or no response to electrical stimulation will be avoided in the programming of the device, and the components of the processed input frequency will accompany the stimulation. The goal of the present study was to compare the frequency encoding strategy and its effect on speech understanding of the recipients of single-channel and multi-channel cochlear implant systems.
Published researches were identified by reviewing scientific databases (PubMed, Science Direct, and Google Scholar) from 1965 to 2016 using relevant keywords. The researches were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Single-channel cochlear implants encode the frequency based on the rate of firing of electrical impulses. Multi-channel cochlear implants ýuse the spatial strategy theory for frequency encoding, wherein the different frequencies of the auditory signal are separated and presented in a tonotopic manner along the length of the cochlea via the electrode array. The spatial and temporal encoding of the sound frequencies can be partly replicated by multi-channel stimulation of the auditory nerve. Encoding strategy in multi-channel cochlear implant consists of feature extraction and wave form. The resulting speech understanding of the single-channel and multi-channel systems was also assessed.
Based on the findings, it can be concluded that single-channel cochlear implant systems with temporal encoding of frequency do not adequately convey speech information, whereas multi-channel cochlear implants ýhave more similarities to the tonotopic map of the cochlea and provide a better speech understanding in comparison to single channel devices.