The perception and expression of nouns in 2.5 to 4 year-old normal Persian-speaking children in Arak, Central Iran

The words are the symbolic tools for communication. Nouns are the initial and the most frequent components of language that children acquire and use during the procedure of language development. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the noun perception and expression abilities in Persian-speaking children, as well as gathering the normative data for two picture-pointing and picture-naming tests. In this cross-sectional study, 110 normal Persian-speaking children (54 girls and 56 boys), 2.5 to 4 year-old in four groups, were selected randomly throughout Arak kindergartens. Two pictorial perception and expression tests were performed in this study. Mean scores of perception and expression was statistically different between all age groups, except 3 and 3.5 year-old groups (p<0.05). There was no statistically difference between mean scores of girls and boys. In addition, a significant positive correlation between mean scores of perception and expression was shown (p=0.001, r=0.896). The perception and expression abilities are different in 4 age groups. The two picture-pointing and picture-naming tests can show these differences. Regardless of rapid development of perception, perception and expression abilities develop in parallel, and the ability of girls and boys shows similar trends.