[Comparison of intonation production in cochlear-implanted children and normal hearing children]

Due to defects of auditory feedback, children with hearing loss have inappropriate speech intonation. Consistently, results of previous studies have shown that cochlear implanted children have some difficulties in their intonation. Intonation shows the type of the sentence which can be statement or question sentences. The purpose of this study was comparison of speech intonation in cochlear-implanted children and normal hearing children. The present study was performed on 25 cochlear-implanted children and 50 normal hearing children. Different pictures were shown to the subjects and they said statement and question sentences. All sentences were heard by eight speech therapists and perceptually judged. Using praat software mean base frequency and pitch alterations were measured. In cochlear-implanted group, mean speech base frequency was higher and mean pitch alteration was lower than the control group. Mean experts' scores in cochlear-implanted group were lower than the control group. Differences in all three variables were statistically significant [p<0.05]. There was a significant direct correlation between duration of time that the children had cochlear implant and perceptual judgment scores [p<0.05]. According to the results, cochlear implant prosthesis has limited efficacy in improving speech intonation; although their ability to produce speech intonation improves by increasing duration of the time that children have cochlear implant. Thus speech therapists should consider intervening on speech intonation in treatment program of cochlear-implanted children.

[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.

[ comparative study of diadochokinesis and the rate of reading and speech [correct in data input sheet] in second grade primary students of Tehran, Iran]

Children with speech and language disorders can have reduced diadochokinesis [DDK] rates. Although a relationship has been proposed between DDK and the rate of speech, there is no consensus among the experts and its credibility remains questioned. The purpose of this study was to compare oral DKK with the rate of speech and reading in normal students. One hundred second grade female students participated in this descriptive-comparative study. The subjects were asked to read a text of their book, tell a story, and perform some oral DDK tasks. The elapsed time was measured by Cool Edit software. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the data. Data analysis was performed using Student t-test. Time history durations of DDK tasks /ta/, tpa/ and /ka/ were 4.10, 4.15 and 4.74 ms, respectively. The rate of reading was 3.1 syllables per second and rate of talking was 2.8 syllables per second. No relationship between the rate of speech and DDK was found, still, we found a significant association between the reading rate and DDK in /ka/ [p=0.03] and /pataka/ [P<0.01]. Relevant DDK tasks can be utilized in order to improve the reading rate, Reading rate was higher than speech rate and the rate of bilabial diadochokinesis in mono syllables is the highest rate that may be expected during the treatments

[Standardization of maximum phonation time among the guidance students in Tehran]

The primary energy for speech production is prepared by breathing flow. As there was no index for the maximum phonation time[MPT] to compare normal and speech disordered speakers in Iran, the purpose of this study was to establish this standard for guidance school students in Tehran. This cross-sectional study was performed on 576 guidance students from 1st, 5th, 8th, 10th, 15th and 19th educational regions. Each student made a usual inhalation and produced the /a/ for three times with the maximum strength but in a way that he/she didn't feel tension on his/her neck or larynx. The maximum time was recorded as the maximum phonation time. The results of this research revealed that girls' MPT in all regions was 15.3, 16.7, and 17.16 seconds and the boys' was 15.41, 16.7 and 17.01 seconds and all students' 15.36, 16.17 and 17.08 seconds in order of their grades. There was significant difference between first and third grade mean MPT [p=0.003]. The result of this study indicates that, as the students age increases their MPT increase, too. Also, boys' MPT was more than girls' in first and second grades; however, in third grade the girls' MPT was more

[Comparison between phonological priming and semantic in male 18-25 priming in the short verbal memory span]

The short-term memory [STM] has been studied to a great extent so far. Using some strategies and techniques to help the subject to access to his/her memory is important for Speech pathologist. Priming is a process that increases the chance of accessing to some information of memory by means of some simulations. So, primings are some words which facilitate the retrieval of the target words. The purpose of this study is comparing phonological and semantic priming on the short verbal memory span. The research was conducted on sixty-four 18-25 year-old male students in Tehran University of Medical sciences. Due to some distortion factors, including bilingualism, stutter-ing, and articulation problem, that can effect the reaction time, were determined as exclusion critenia. In additiion, subjects with difficulty in Wepman auditory discrimination were ruled out. The test was performed via the second version of programmed DMDX software and reaction time was recorded. Semantic tasks and rhyming tasks were retrieved faster than the other tasks in lexical access respectively. There was a significant difference between the semantic and rime tasks but there is no significant difference between alliteration and unrelated tasks. The result of this research indicates that the semantic level is activated faster than the other levels and the phonological level is activated right after that. The alliteration level is the last level that activated. It has some similarities with some other investigations on the reaction time in phono-logical tasks