Background: This study compares the mental health and psychological response of students with or without hearing loss during the recurrence of the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, the capital of China. It explores the relevant factors affecting mental health and provides evidence-driven strategies to reduce adverse psychological impacts during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: We used the Chinese version of depression, anxiety, and stress scale 21 (DASS-21) to assess the mental health and the impact of events scale—revised (IES-R) to assess the COVID-19 psychological impact. Results: The students with hearing loss are frustrated with their disability and particularly vulnerable to stress symptoms, but they are highly endurable in mitigating this negative impact on coping with their well-being and responsibilities. They are also more resilient psychologically but less resistant mentally to the pandemic impacts than the students with normal hearing. Their mental and psychological response to the pandemic is associated with more related factors and variables than that of the students with normal hearing is. Conclusions: To safeguard the welfare of society, timely information on the pandemic, essential services for communication disorders, additional assistance and support in mental counseling should be provided to the vulnerable persons with hearing loss that are more susceptible to a public health emergency.

Early auditory and speech development in home-based early intervention of infants and toddlers with hearing loss younger than 2 years are still spare in China. This study aimed to observe the development of auditory and speech in deaf infants and toddlers who were fitted with hearing aids and/or received cochlear implantation between the chronological ages of 7-24 months, and analyze the effect of chronological age and recovery time on auditory and speech development in the course of home-based early intervention. This longitudinal study included 55 hearing impaired children with severe and profound binaural deafness, who were divided into Group A (7-12 months), Group B (13-18 months) and Group C (19-24 months) based on the chronological age. Categories auditory performance (CAP) and speech intelligibility rating scale (SIR) were used to evaluate auditory and speech development at baseline and 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, and 24 months of habilitation. Descriptive statistics were used to describe demographic features and were analyzed by repeated measures analysis of variance. With 24 months of hearing intervention, 78% of the patients were able to understand common phrases and conversation without lip-reading, 96% of the patients were intelligible to a listener. In three groups, children showed the rapid growth of trend features in each period of habilitation. CAP and SIR scores have developed rapidly within 24 months after fitted auxiliary device in Group A, which performed much better auditory and speech abilities than Group B (P < 0.05) and Group C (P < 0.05). Group B achieved better results than Group C, whereas no significant differences were observed between Group B and Group C (P > 0.05). The data suggested the early hearing intervention and home-based habilitation benefit auditory and speech development. Chronological age and recovery time may be major factors for aural verbal outcomes in hearing impaired children. The development of auditory and speech in hearing impaired children may be relatively crucial in thefirst year's habilitation after fitted with the auxiliary device.

The current study aims to translate and cross-culturally adapt the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-Management of Child Hearing Loss (AAQ-MCHL) scale to Chinese caregivers of children with heari...