Spoken and Written Narrative in Persian-Speaking Students Who Received Cochlear Implant and/or Hearing Aid

OBJECTIVES: To compare narrative skills between fourth and fifth grades of Persian-speaking students with hearing impairments and typical hearing students of the same grade and also to evaluate the effects of group, sex, hearing age, and educational grade of the students on their spoken/written narrative performance. METHODS: The subjects were 174 students aged 10–13 years, 54 of whom wore cochlear implants, 60 suffered from moderate to severe hearing losses and wore hearing aids, with the remaining 60 students being typical hearing in terms of the sense of hearing. The micro- and macrostructure components of spoken and written narrative were elicited from a pictorial story (The Playful Little Elephant) and then scored by raters. RESULTS: Compared to the typical hearing, the students with hearing impairments had significantly lower scores in all of the microstructure components of narratives. However, the findings showed no significant difference among different groups in macrostructure components of narratives. It was also revealed that the students had equal performance in spoken and written narrative. Finally, factor analysis manifested that group, sex, hearing age, and educational level of children might alter the outcome measures in various interactions. CONCLUSION: Although cochlear implantation was more effective than hearing aid on spoken and written narrative skills, the Persian-speaking students with hearing impairments were seen to need additional trainings on microstructure components of spoken/written narrative.

Surface electromyographic assessment of swallowing function

The reliability of surface electromyographic [sEMG] variables during swallowing determines the potential usefulness of these measures in swallowing assessment and treatment. This study aimed to establish the reliability of the sEMG measures of the swallowing function of muscles during different swallowing conditions in healthy young and old volunteers. Two groups of volunteers [24 older adults, 10 younger adults] participated in this cross-sectional study during 2014. The activity of masseter, submental, and infrahyoid groups were measured using sEMG during three repetitions of different swallowing tasks. Both the relative and absolute reliability [characterized respectively by ICC, SEM%, and SRD%] were calculated for the sEMG indices of muscle activity during swallowing events. Statistical analyses were performed by the SPSS 19.0 and Microsoft Excel 2007 software packages. Statistical significance was set at P

comparative study of performance of normal and cochlear implanted children in two phonological awareness tests

Background: Phonological awareness skills include three levels syllabic, intra- syllabic and phonemic awareness, and have major influence on speech and reading and writing abilities. Thus, the assessment of children abilities in these levels is important. This study aimed to investigate and compare the performance of normal and cochlear implanted children in two types of phonological awareness tests

Method and Materials: The population of this cross-sectional study eighteen normal and eighteen cochlear implanted children 5-5.5 years from the cochlear implant centers in three hospitals in Tehran and the Tehran University dormitory married, respectively. Thereafter, their phonological awareness skills were evaluated in auditory-visual modality [2010] and visual modality [2009]. Finally, the data were analyzed using Mann Whithney and Spearman non-parametric tests in the spss [16.0] software

Results: Cochlear implanted children, when compared with normal children, had lower scores in both Visual - Auditory and Auditory phonological awareness tests [p< 0.001]. Average cochlear implantation group in both [Visual - Auditory] and [Auditory] tests was: 16.17 [6.1] and 6.72 [5.9], respectively and in normal children group was 40.5 [3.9] and 77.76 [13.5]. Both groups had better performances in the first test than the later one [p< 0.001]. There was also a correlation between children's scores on the two tests; but in the cochlear implanted children, this correlation was lower [r= 0.582] than the normal ones [r= 0.785]

Conclusion: The visual - auditory test for use of the images, for assessment of phonological awareness skills in children with cochlear implants are more suitable and hearing test for the assessment of phonological awareness skills in a more sophisticated level, is useful

[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.

[ study of language performances of Persian children with specific language impariment]

Specific language impairment [SLI] is one of the most prevalent developmental language disorders which is less considered in Persian researches. The aim of this study was to investigate the differences in some morpho-syntactic features of speech and other language skills between Persian children with specific language impairment and their normal age-matched peers. Moreover, the usefulness of the test of language development-3 [TOLD-3], Persian version, as a tool in identifying Persian-speaking children with this impairment, was investigated. In a case-control study, the results of the test of language development and speech samples analysis of 13 Persian-speaking children [5 to 7 years old] with specific language impairment were compared with 13 age-matched normal children. The results of this study showed that there were significant differences between the scores of specific language impairment group and control group in all measured aspects of the TOLD-3 [p<0.001]; the children with specific language impairment had a shorter mean length of utterance [p<0.001] and made less use of functional words in their speech [p=0.002] compared with their peers. Such as specific language impairment children in other languages, all language abilities of Persian-speaking children with specific language impairment are less than expected stage for their age. Furthermore, the Persian version of TOLD-3 is a useful assessment instrument in identifying children with specific language impairment which is comparable to the other languages

[Providing a non word repetition test in 4-year-old Persian children and determining its validity and reliability]

Phonological working memory is an important factor in speech and language development and the treatment of related disorders. Assessment of this kind of memory is based on non word repetition. The aim of this study was providing a non word repetition test to examine the capacity of phonological working memory and determining its validity and reliability. This is a cross-sectional study. Initially 60 words were selected based on common Persian syllable structures. Then non words were created by changing one or two phonemes in each of the words. Words and non words were assessed by experts for the content validity and 25 non words were selected. 16 boys and 14 girls aged 4 years to 4 years and eleven months were selected by nonprobability sampling from the childcares centers in regions 2 and 6 of Tehran. The test was performed twice by a single examiner to evaluate the reliability of test. Children non word repetition scores were determined and correlation analysis was conducted using the Pearson's correlation coefficient. Our results show that a high coefficient correlation between different performances 0.76 [p<0.001]. These findings show that non word repetition test has high validity and reliability

Fundamental frequency, jitter, and shimmer of adult stutters and nonstutters' voice

Objective measurement is general and acoustic measurements in particular have become a substantial aspect of stuttering assessment during the last few decades. Measurements do not replace the perceptual judgment, but they allow a more precise diagnosis, provide more evidence for therapeutic interventions, and are useful as feedback for patients in therapy. The purpose of this investigation was to compare some adult male stutterers' and nonstutterers' acoustic features. Adult male stutterers and nonstutterers participated this case-control study. Their fluent reading of 20 sentences in Farsi, prolongation of vowels/a/ and/i/, and rhythmic counting from 1 to 20 were analyed with Dr. Speech software. There were no significant differences between two groups in fundamental frequency [f[0]] and standard deviation of f0 in three speech samples [vowels/a/ and/i/, reading 20 sentences, and rhythmic counting from 1 to 20]. No significant difference were between two groups for jitter and shimmer. Non significant differences between two groups are somewhat due to investigation of this parameters in fluent speech of stutterers and nonstutterers