[Internal evaluation department of speech therapy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences]

Internal evaluation is an important part of organization monitoring. One of the Ministry of Health's policies is to encourage educational departments to conduct internal evaluations. The aim of internal evaluation of department of speech therapy was appraising its education, research and treatment qualities and determining its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats [SWOTs] to identify the ways of overcoming weakness and threats. This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in 10 phases to evaluate 10 factors. Participants were undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate students, academic staff, director of the department along with the patients. The internal evaluation software for educational and research centers released by Center of Medical Education Studies and Development was modified and utilized. Data was analyzed by calculating mean of means. Mean of means from highest to lowest scores were respectively as follows: the quality of diagnosis, treatment and dealing with patients 4.15 out of 5; as well as the quality of academic staff 3.5 were in the range of desirable category; qualities of management and organizational structure 3.34, graduate students 3.21, teaching and learning processes 3.1, missions and goals 3.09, instructional methods and curriculum models 2.99, educational and research equipments 2.9, students 2.76 and research 2.67 were within the range of rather desirable category. Total score was 3.17 [63.4%] which was within the range of rather desirable category. The department of speech therapy was in rather desirable state before merger. That result was appropriate according to the department's conditions and supplies.

[ role of sex in glottic closure pattern in people with normal voice]

Glottic closure pattern is one of the most important stroboscopic signs in judging the normality of laryngeal function. According to the recent researches, complete glottic closure is not the only pattern in normal phonation. The aim of this study was to investigate the glottic closure pattern in normal subjects and to understand the role of sex in having different glottic closure patterns. In a cross-sectional study, 80 subjects [58 females and 22 males; mean age of 21.19 years] were randomly selected from a population of 218 students. After taking a full medical history and performing perceptual and voice self assessment, subjects without any vocal disorders were recruited. Videolaryngoscopic assessment was performed during producing the vowel sound /i/ in habitual, high, low, loud and soft levels of phonation. Glottic closure patterns were analyzed in different phonation and also were compared between males and females. Although complete closure was the most frequent pattern, Y posterior chink was the second pattern in males [20.2%] and females [39.4%] in all phonation. The results revealed significant difference between males and females in glottic closure pattern [p=0.001]. Moreover, significant differences were observed in habitual [p=0.004], high [p=0.006] and soft [p=0.02] phonations between males and females; however, the differences in low [p=0.7] and loud [p=0.19] phonations between males and females were not significant. Y posterior chink, as well as complete closure, are likely to be normal findings in people with normal voice. Besides, gender has a significant influence on glottic closure pattern

[Use of tense in Persian agrammatic broca's aphasia]

Agrammatism is a phenomenon of neuropsychological relevance which has been recently investigated from conceptual and empirical aspects. The present study focuses on grammatical deficit in agrammatic aphasia. We evaluated the impairment of correct use of tenses of Persian verbs in agrammatic Broca's aphasia. Eight patients [mean age 57 years] participated in this descriptive - analytic study. They were classified as agrammatic Broca's aphasia according to the Persian aphasia test, their CT Scan and MRI reports and other inclusion criteria. All patients but one were monolingual native speakers of Persian [Farsi]. The other individual was bilingual whose dominant language was Persian. All subjects had a left unilateral brain lesion for at least one year after the onset of brain damage. The written sentence completion and picture sentence completion tests were designed and performed. Results do not indicate significant difference between Past Tenses of verb; however, comparison of means showed best scores in Simple Past, Past Continuous, Present Perfect and Past Perfect, respectively. A main result of this study was significant difference between the mean of responses of Past Tense in comparison with Present Tense and Future [p=0.02]. Use of tense is impaired in agrammatic Broca's aphasia in Persian. Our findings point out that use of Past Tense is impaired significantly more than the other tenses of verb

[Relationship between phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming and reading in first grade students in Tehran, Iran]

Reading is one of the human's communicative skills. Phonological awareness and rapid automatized naming are parts of the person's linguistic knowledge. Research in different languages and communities suggest that there is a relation between phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming and reading. To survey these relations in Persian language is the aim of this study. In this study 130 male students from the first grade were selected at random. They were normal in IQ, visual and hearing status. Language development was also normal in these children. This study was a cross-sectional one. Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression test were used to analyze data. The relation between phonological awareness and automatized rapid naming was significant [p<0.0001]. Pearson correlation coefficient between phonological awareness and reading was direct [0.86]. Pearson correlation coefficient between rapid automatized naming and reading was indirect that equals -0.87. In investigating the relation of two variables simultaneously with reading we concluded that the relation between phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming and reading is statistically significant [p<0.0001]. The results of this research revealed that in Persian language like other languages there is a relation between phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, and reading. Reading skills of children could be improved with this exercise

Investigation of usage of semantic and phonological cues in naming of fluent aphasia and Alzheimer disease

Fluent aphasia and Alzheimer patients have difficulties in perception and naming. Patient with fluent Aphasia and Alzheimer disease, both have difficulty in perception and naming. Their site of lesion is also identical, that is temporoparietal lobe which is damaged in both group. This study investigates the effects of semantic and phonological cues in facilitation of word finding. The study was prescriptive - analytic cross-sectional with 14 patients. The participants were seven fluent aphasia with mean age 48.4 year old and seven Alzheimer patients with mean age 69/71 year old and mean Mini-Mental State Examination [MMSE] 16 score. Those were assessed with Persian Naming Test. The Aphasic patients were selected from Tehran University hospitals and Alzheimer ones were from Rouzbeh hospital and Alzheimer Association of Iran. Mean semantic and phonological cues in fluent aphasia patients were 2.71 and 12.29, respectively, which significantly different [p = 0.01], but those results were 8.29 and 3.43 in Alzheimer patients, that were not significantly different [p > 0.05]. A main result of this study was significant difference between two cues in both groups. Two groups of patients use two cues in word finding. The correct responses increase with phonological cue in fluent aphasia but semantic cue has the main role for naming in Alzheimer patients

[ comparison study of articulation errors in cochlear implant children before 3 and after 4 years old]

Speech is the essential need of the social life. To acquire that, children highly rely on the normal senses and speech full environment. The normal auditory senseis the most important need. Early amplification intervention in children with hearing difficulties is advised. Cochlear implant technology provides an effective help for hearing-impaired children in recent decades. With regards to new and limited implantation services in Iran, the effects of operation age on speech and language of implanted children was not studied yet. The purpose of this study was to compare articulation errors in cochlear implanted children with different operation age. In this crosssectional study, ten cochlear implanted children before three and eleven after four years old were evaluated. The participants were without any anatomical, visual, and intelligence abnormality and 2.5-3 years was passed from their operation. Then, by using Picture Pho-netic Test [PPT], the articulation errors of individuals were extracted and for more evaluation of the er-rors and complete of PPT, we, also used their excited connected speech by presenting pictures. By applica_tion of t-test and using SPSS software, the data was analyzed. Data analysis indicated that, there was meaningful significant difference between substitute errors and whole errors in two gropes but there was not meaningful significant difference between de-stroyed errors in two gropes. The children who undergoing operation after 4 years old had severed articulation disorder than other grope. These issues indicated that the earlier operation of children will lead to improve the speech skills and reduced the articulation errors