Relationship of Language, Intelligent and Social Quotients in Children with Speech and Language Disorder

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship of language, intelligent and social quotients in children with speech and language disorder and to evaluate the clinical usefulness of language quotient for predicting the extents of cognitive and social functions. METHOD: Total 139 children who visited the department of rehabilitation medicine for the evaluation of suspected speech-language delay. All children were evaluated for receptive and expressive language quotients, articulation accuracy, verbal, performance and full-scale intelligent quotients and social maturation assessment. RESULTS: Approximately 70% of the children who had chief complaints of speech or language disorder were diagnosed as 'receptive and expressive language developmental delay'. Intelligent and social quotients of the children with receptive and expressive language developmental delay were significantly lower than those of the other groups (p<0.05). Both receptive and expressive language quotients, but not dysarticulation, were significantly correlated with intelligent and social quotients (p<0.05). Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that the language quotients could predict intelligent and social quotients as simple equations (p<0.01). CONCLUSION: Primary result of receptive and expressive language quotients from screening test of language evaluation might be able to predict cognitive function and social maturity, which also showed high-degree positive correlation with intelligent and social quotients. This result could provide a useful guideline for further developmental studies in children with speech and language disorder who received primary speech evaluation.

Improvement of Sperm Quality by Pseudoephedrine in Spinal Cord Injured Males

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the changes of sperm quality by taking adrenergic agonist in spinal cord injured (SCI) males treated by repeated electro-ejaculation. METHOD: Twenty-six SCI males were induced three times to ejaculate with rectal probe electrical stimulation, and then semen analysis for their antegrade and retrograde ejaculates was performed, at weekly interval, while they either took pseudoephedrine (Sudafed(R)) for 2 weeks or no medication as a control. RESULTS: Before pseudoephedrine medication, there was no significant difference in sperm quality between two groups. However, after 2 weeks' medication, SCI males taking pse-udoephedrine showed increased semen concentration, motile sperm count and sperm motility of the antegrade ejaculates compared to control group, although there was no difference in any parameter of the retrograde ejaculates. Moreover, sperm motility of the antegrade ejaculates significantly improved after 2 weeks' medication compared with those at the baseline. CONCLUSION: Pseudoephedrine, a sympathomimetic adrenergic agonist, may potentiate the improvement of sperm quality in SCI males undergoing repeated electro-ejaculation for short periods.