ABSTRACT
Objective: Speech and language disorders, when happening during childhood will ultimately lead to important negative outcomes in the life of the child. The farther we move from this critical period, that is, the first 3 years of life, the less will be the positive effects of environmental stimuli on the development of speech and language. Early detection of children at risk for or in the preliminary phases of developmental delays and provision of early intervention services for them is of utmost importance. The objective of this research was to compile and produce protocols for early intervention in childhood speech and language developmental disorders in Iranian children
Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in two main phases: review phase and qualitative phase. In the review phase, all accessible search engines and databases, especially those for systematic reviews and guidelines were searched. In the qualitative study phase, several focus group discussions and rounds of Delphi were carried out with 20 experts in 7 subgroups, who were selected purposively
Results: The result of this study is presented as 7 intervention packages, including the following domains of disorders: prelingual lingual hearing impairment, speech sound disorders, dysphagia, stuttering, and dysarthria
Conclusion: Most studies have confirmed the effectiveness and need for early interventions for children with speech and language impairment. However, most do not explain the details of these interventions. Before the present study, no systematic and evidence-based protocol existed for early intervention in childhood speech and language impairments, in Iran; and due to language differences, as well as possible differences in the speech and language developmental process of children of different communities, making direct use of non-Persian references was not possible and effective. Thus, there was a clear demand for the production of such a protocol
Subject(s)
Humans , Child , Guideline Adherence , Early Intervention, Educational , Speech Disorders , ChildABSTRACT
Speech and language development is one of the main aspects of evolution in humans and is one of the most complex brain functions such that it is referred to as one of the highest cortical functions such as thinking, reading and writing. Speech and language disorders are considered as a major public health problem because they cause many secondary complications in the childhood and adulthood period which affect one's socioeconomic status overall. This study was conducted in two phases. The first phase was to identify all potential factors influencing delay in referral of children with speech and language disorders for receiving rehabilitation services, based on literature as well as the families' and experts' points of view. In the second phase of the study which was designed in a case-control manner, actual factors influencing the time of referral were compared between two groups of participants. Receiving proper counseling by physicians about importance of the issue had significant impact on the on-time referral for treatment of children with speech and language disorders. After definite diagnosis of speech and language disorders in the child, parents' awareness about the consequences of speech and language disorders had a significant influence on early referral for speech and language pathology services and our hypothesis was confirmed. Discussion: This study highlighted the importance of multiple factors and their relationship with the time of referral, the majority of which were somehow related to one of two major factors: parental awareness and concerns, and physicians' counseling. As described earlier, our study showed that before diagnosis of the child's disorder is definitely given, the physicians' counseling regarding the importance and necessity of early diagnosis, as well as of screening and diagnostic tests play a significant role in the time of referral for receiving speech and language pathology services
ABSTRACT
Quality of life, when referring to an individual's health, is called health-related quality of life. The purpose of this study is to assess self-perceived hearing loss related quality of life of adolescents with hearing loss and its relationship with sex, age sub-groups or school settings with domains of quality of life. A school based survey was conducted in Tehran city. Using stratified sampling, 255 7th to 12th grade students with hearing loss, aged 11-19 years, studying in main streaming and special school sitting, were participated in the study by completing the health-related quality of life adolescent's questionnaire. Physical, Emotional and Social health-related quality of life domain scores as well as Total health-related quality of life scores was calculated in a 0-100 scoring system. As a whole, health-related quality of life of adolescents calculated to be 64.7 +/- 16.5. Students with milder hearing loss reported their quality of life [physical, emotional and social domains, as well as total quality of life] better than those with more severe hearing loss. Girls reported their physical and total health-related quality of life better than boys, and adolescents who were studied in mainstreaming reported better physical, social and total health-related quality of life [P<0.05]. No significant differences were seen between reported health-related quality of life in early, mid or late adolescent age sub-groups. Nevertheless the power of tests was not enough to exclude differences between groups. Findings of this study could be readily used to focus interventions on domains with more weakness in each group of adolescents. Beyond that the results could be helpful as a base line for detecting effectiveness of interventions in future
ABSTRACT
Objective: The aim of this research was to assess the level of awareness of rehabilitation professionals employed in academic rehabilitation centers in Tehran with reference to Tele-rehabilitation technology
Methods: In this study, a descriptive cross-sectional research method was used. The research was implemented by using a researcher-designed questionnaire which was developed by the integration and cultural adaptation of different tools collected in the field of tele-health implementation feasibility. The content and face validity of the questionnaire was determined and approved by Lawsche's method. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by test-retest correlation coefficient determinations. After considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria, informed consent was obtained, and the questionnaires were distributed among the study sample, which comprised of 141 rehabilitation professionals
Results: The findings show that a desirable level of awareness does not exist among rehabilitation professionals with regards to this technology. Based upon the results, only 8% of the participants had basic knowledge of this technology required in case of implementation
Discussion: Since rehabilitation professionals' awareness and knowledge can be a major key to a better implementation and application of this technology, it seems that there is a need for some developmental and training programs, such as informative educational workshops and seminars, to help them improve their level of knowledge and awareness
ABSTRACT
Multiple sclerosis is a progressive demyelization disease which can progress to physical disability in many patients. People with multiple sclerosis face many problems and complications which require appropriate education and interventions. Multidisciplinary neurorehabilitation is an effective treatment for quality of life improvement in MS patents. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of Hayate Noo center rehabilitation protocol on quality of life of MS patents. In this clinical trial 130 MS patients [65 patients as treatment group and 65 as control group] were studied. Participants were randomly selected from patients attending Iran MS society in Tehran. The two groups were matched in terms of sex, age and education, type of MS, marital status, time of onset of MS, and disability status. A questionnaire was used for data collection. The questionnaire consisted of three parts .Part one is demographics information and the 2[nd] part consisted of Persian version of MSQOL-54 questionnaire. This questionnaire has been translated and validated in previous studies, with 0.96 coefficient [alpha cronbach] reliability. The 3rd part included Persian version of PDDS questionnaire .This test is designed to measure the disability status and has a correlation coefficient of 0.80 [spearman correlation] with EDSS [expanded disability status scale]. Patients in treatment group participated in the multidisciplinary rehabilitation protocol. This protocol was designed in Hayate Noo center. Each patient in treatment group attended in at least 8 sessions of Hayate Noo multidisciplinary neurorehabilitation protocol for 3 months. All participants were assessed in terms of their disability status prior to the study. Participants in both groups completed MSQOL-54 before and after the study. The data were analyzed using SPSS software, version 16. Student t-test was used to compare means and Pearson correlation coefficient was used for measuring the correlations. Changes in Quality of life scores in treatment group were statistically significant [p<005]. Scores of all subscales in Quality of life measure [except for cognitive domain] increased in treatment group compared with the control group. Physical health composite score increased 8.04 point and mental health composite score improved 7.7 point [P<0.001]. Also the social activity of treatment group increased comparing with the control group. Use of Hayateno center protocol has increased quality of life scores in MS patients. This improvement is comparable with another center in the world