akbar darouie

The theory of mind is an underlying cognitive ability for the development of social skills, which is closely linked to language development. Since one of the primary deficits resulting from hearing impairment is language difficulty, this study investigates the relationship between theory of mind skills and specific language domains, including mean length of utterance (MLU) as an assessment of grammatical development and comprehension of mental verbs, in 5-7-year-old children with moderate to severe hearing impairment.

This is a descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study. Using the convenience sampling method, 38 children (18 boys and 20 girls) aged 5-7 years with hearing impairments were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. MLU, theory of mind and comprehension of mental verbs in children were measured using colloquial speech, theory of mind tests and comprehension of mental verb tests, respectively, and the relation between these variables was examined using correlation tests and the effect size assessment.

The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test showed that the data distribution was normal (P<0.05); therefore, the Pearson correlation coefficient was employed to examine the correlation between variables. The study results revealed no significant relation between MLU and theory of mind (P>0.05). However, a significant relation was found between the comprehension of mental verbs and the theory of mind (P≤0.05). Moreover, a significant relation was also found between MLU and comprehension of mental verbs (P≤0.05). The effect size was calculated using Cohen d, and a value greater than 0.8 was obtained for all correlations, indicating a large effect size.

There was a significant positive relationship between theory of mind skills and comprehension of mental verbs. Accordingly, enhancing theory of mind skills would be effective in increasing the comprehension of mental verbs. Thus, by creating therapeutic programs based on enhancing theory of mind skills, it may be possible to increase the comprehension of mental verbs and improve advanced expressive language skills in hearing-impaired children. Furthermore, no relationship was observed between the development of the theory of mind and MLU, which is an indicator of grammatical development, suggesting that grammatical development may not be correlated with the development of the theory of mind.

Since December 2019, COVID-19 spread worldwide. Patients with COVID-19 are at high hazard for dysphagia. This study investigates the incidence of dysphagia in COVID-19 patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and identifies predictors of dysphagia in COVID-19 patients.

This prospective study analyzed 100 COVID-19 patients admitted to the ICU of Firoozgar Hospital in Tehran City, Iran. The demographic and clinical features of the eligible patients were collected. Dysphagia and cognition were evaluated according to the Persian version of functional oral intake (FOIS-P) status and the Rancho Los Amigos scale (RLAS). The qualitative variables are described in frequency and percentages and the quantitative variables are illustrated by Mean±SD. Also, univariate and multivariate cox regression was performed to predict possible relations between demographic and clinical variables with dysphagia.

A total of 100 COVID-19 patients (43.3±13.3 years, 55% were men) who were admitted to the ICUs were appraised by speech and language pathologists. Meanwhile, 70% of the subjects had at least one comorbidity, with the most common ones being diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. Also, 74% of patients were on invasive mechanical ventilation (60% through endotracheal tube and 40% through tracheostomy). In addition, 57% of patients presented dysphagia. Age (odd ratio (OR)=1.127; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.019%, 1.247%; P=0.02) and level of consciousness (OR=0.393; 95% CI, 0.178%, 0.868%; P=0.021) were predictors of dysphagia. 

Dysphagia was prevalent among COVID-19 patients predicted by age and level of consciousness. Early evaluation of suspected patients is required for timely and efficient interventions to avoid further problematic issues and progress their quality of life.

Grammar is a key element of language knowledge and a factor in predicting language learning and success. Early diagnosis of grammatical errors in children before entering school is very important. So far, no tool has been designed to evaluate the Azerbaijani language grammar comprehension in Iran. The present study aims to design the Azerbaijani language grammar comprehension test for Iranian children aged 4-6 along and assess its validity.

This is a mixed-method (qualitative-quantitative) study. After searching in various databases and reviewing available articles, 42 grammatical structures of the Azerbaijani language were extracted, of which 8 were removed after preliminary examination by experts. Then, 204 items were formulated for the remaining 34 grammatical structures. To determine the content validity, the test was sent to 11 experts in the field of Azerbaijani language grammar to evaluate the items. According to their opinions, two more suitable items were selected from among four items for each grammatical structure and included in the initial version for the pilot study. The initial test version was conducted on 30 children aged 4-6 years with normal language development.

After calculating the content validity ratio (CVR), two grammatical structures were removed, and 32 structures with 128 items having CVR≥0.59 remained. After calculating the content validity index (CVI), the items with CVI≥0.79 were selected. The initial version had 32 grammatical structures and 64 items. None of the items were removed in the pilot phase, and only 10 items were modified. The CVR and CVI of the test were 0.91 and 0.87, respectively, indicating good content validity.

The Azerbaijani language grammar comprehension test has good content and face validity and can be used to evaluate the grammar comprehension of children with Azerbaijani language aged 4-6 years.

Stuttering is one of the speech disorders that appears in childhood. Many studies emphasize early interventions for its treatment. Circumstances such as a lack of therapists and the COVID-19 pandemic have limited the access to face-to-face therapy. Studies show some problems with this type of treatment. A detailed understanding of these problems in a cultural context can help increase the quality of providing telepractice. This study was conducted to discover the telepractice treatment of stuttering in preschool children.

This qualitative study was conducted in Iran from November 2020 to February 2022 using the grounded theory method. In this study, in-depth, free, and individual interviews were conducted with 9 therapists and 5 parents of children who stutter. The data were analyzed using the Corbin and Strauss method, version 2015.

After analyzing the data of this study, 6 main categories, 17 subcategories, and 63 primary categories were extracted. The main categories include “hesitation in choosing telepractice”, “characteristics of family and clients”, “technology and the knowledge to apply it”, “therapist skills for telepractice”, “payment system for telepractice fees”, and “efficiency of telepractice”.

In this study, “efficiency of telepractice” was chosen as the central concept that all participants were concerned about in some way. According to this model, “hesitation in choosing telepractice”, “characteristics of family and clients”, and “technology and the knowledge to apply it” as the context have effects on the processes that are taking place in relation to the telepractice in preschool children who stutter. These processes include “therapist skills for telepractice” and “ payment system for telepractice fees”. In the end, all these things increase the efficiency of telepractice.

With the advancement of information and communication technology, the use of telepractice has expanded to provide speech, language, and swallowing services. In different countries, studies have been conducted in the field of telepractice of speech, language, and swallowing disorders, including stuttering, and these studies have confirmed the effectiveness of this method of providing treatment and have mentioned some problems. To present this method of treatment more effectively, the challenges of this treatment should be examined. The present study has been conducted to investigate the facilitators and barriers to the telepractice of stuttering in preschool children.

In this qualitative study, individual unstructured interviews have conducted using qualitative content analysis with 11 participants, including therapists with experience in stuttering telepractice in preschool children, therapists who were opposed to this treatment (n=7 people) as well as parents who have had successful telepractice and parents who have had unsuccessful telepractice (n=4).

Telepractice facilitators included cost reduction, therapist-client communication between sessions, greater parental cooperation and responsibility in telepractice, reduced stress and increased child-therapist collaboration in the natural environment, more time freedom, and time flexibility for the family and therapist. Barriers to telepractice in this group included lower trust in the therapist in telepractice, limited communication cues, spending more energy by the therapist, difficulty in educating parents, and lack of comprehensive protocols in telepractice.

When these cases are recognized, it is possible to provide higher-quality treatment to people who need these services by reducing barriers and strengthening facilitators. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to conduct studies to develop comprehensive and detailed protocols for providing this method of treatment, taking into account the existing facilitators and obstacles.

Today transoral laser microsurgery is considered as one of the first options to control early laryngeal cancer, and voice disorder is one of the inevitable complications of this therapeutic component. This study aimed to compare the vocal function in patients with early-stage laryngeal cancer following laser surgery with healthy individuals with normal voice quality using acoustic analysis and the voice handicap index and to examine the correlation between the results of these two evaluations in each group.

The current research is a descriptive-correlational and comparative study that was cross-sectioned using convenience sampling into two groups consisting of 60 men (Mean±SD of age 59.18±5.170 years) with early laryngeal cancer undergoing laser surgery as a patient group and 60 men (Mean±SD of age 56.68±5.491 years) with normal voice quality, and without any history of voice disorder as a control. The vocal function of participants was assessed using acoustic parameters (including jitter, shimmer, harmonic to noise ratio, fundamental frequency, smoothed cepstral peak prominence) and a 30-item Persian version of the voice handicap index questionnaire (including overall score and scores of physical, emotional and functional subscale). Then, data were analyzed using SPSS software, version 20, descriptive statistics, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, independent t-test, and Pearson correlation coefficient at the P<0.05.

The results show that the acoustic parameters and voice handicap index in the group undergoing laser surgery are significantly different from the control group (P<0.001). Also, a significant direct correlation between jitter and shimmer with total score and physical subscale of VHI, a significant inverse correlation between the harmonic-to-noise ratio and total score, functional and physical subscales of VHI, as well as between smoothed cepstral peak prominence with total score and all subscales of VHI (P<0.05). In addition, in the control group, there is no significant correlation between the acoustic parameters and the subscales of the voice handicap index (P<0.05).

The findings of the acoustic analysis and the voice handicap index show impairment in vocal function and a decrease in voice-related quality of life (QoL) in patients with early laryngeal cancer after laser surgery. Furthermore, a significant correlation between the scores of the voice handicap index and acoustic analysis parameters, especially cepstral analysis indicates the necessity to pay attention to frequency-based analysis. Therefore the results of the present study emphasize the need for a comprehensive assessment of vocal function, providing voice therapy programs, and attention to psychological problems in patients with early laryngeal cancer after laser surgery.

Stuttering is a speech disorder that occurs with frequent and abnormal disruptions in speech, such as sound repetition, sound prolongation, and sound or airflow blockage. Despite the many theories, the cause of stuttering has not been entirely determined, and various factors have been proposed for its etiology. According to the vicious circle hypothesis, increased speech disfluency results from hypervigilance to speech. This study aimed to measure the effect of reduced attention on speech through verbal and non-verbal dual tasks among school children with stuttering. Furthermore, the effect of dual tasks on the severity of stuttering was investigated among them.

In this cross-sectional study, the participants included 39 children (5 girls, 12.8%) and (34 boys, 87.2%) aged 8-12 years (10.25±1.35) with developmental stuttering selected via convenience sampling from primary schools in districts four and eight and speech therapy clinics in Tehran, Iran. Dual tasks were designed using the Visual Basic program. During the study, four speech samples were recorded for each participant. The second and third samples were designed as a dual task (addition of verbal or non-verbal tasks), while the first and fourth samples were designed as a single task. The participant’s severity of stuttering in each sample was calculated based on the number of stuttered syllables (SS%), and data were analyzed by SPSS 20 software. Given the non-normal distribution of data, the generalized linear model with the Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) and Bonferroni test were used to determine the difference in stuttering severity among speech samples.

The GEE results showed that the severity of stuttering was different among the four speech samples (P=0.015). The lowest and highest mean stuttering severity among the 39 participants pertained to the non-verbal dual task (14.85) and the single initial task (17.11), respectively. A pairwise comparison of stuttering severity showed that the mean severity in the final single task was significantly lower than in the single initial task (P<0.05). However, mean stuttering severity was not significantly different between verbal and non-verbal tasks (P>0.05).

The findings showed that stuttering severity reduces when children with stuttering perform dual tasks. In other words, focusing children’s attention on verbal and non-verbal tasks while talking reduced their dysfluency.

The Lidcombe therapeutic program is one of the treatments for stuttering in preschool children whose effectiveness on improvement in stuttering has been confirmed. Some families have no access to care centers due to different reasons and as such, they are deprived of treatment. Distant treatment would be a proper solution for this issue, in which all people can reach their needed treatment without being concerned over their geographical locations. Because some research has been conducted on telepractice for speech and language disorders in different ways in different countries, regarding the cultural differences that influence the duration of the Lidcombe program as well as its distant implementation, we investigated the extent of the stuttering effect in telepractice program on preschool children in Iran.

In this single-subject study, the Lidcombe program was implemented through live video communication between the therapist in a clinic and the subjects at home for 15 weekly sessions on five 4-6-year-old children, including three boys and two girls. To investigate the progress of the effect, the percentage of stuttered syllables, which were recorded by the therapist as well as the 9-score stuttering severity scale, which was recorded by the parents at home, were employed. During the first base line, which had been considered as three weeks, 21 times the severity rating were recorded, while 3 times the percentage of stuttered syllables were recorded. In the treatment phase, which lasted 15 weekly sessions, 105 and 15 times the score of severity and the percentage of stuttered syllables were recorded respectively. In the second base line, which had been considered as three weeks, 21 and 3 times the score of severity and the percentage of stuttered syllables were recorded respectively.

To analyze the data of this study, Z-index and diagram plotting were used. The investigation of the stuttering severity scores and the percentage of stuttered syllables before and after the treatment suggest diminished severity and percentage of the stuttered syllables in children. After 15 sessions, two subjects approached the final criteria of the first phase of the Lidcombe program (scores with intensities one and two); however, they did not achieve the criteria. Other subjects did not achieve the final criteria in the first phase either, in spite of the diminished severity and percentage of stuttering.

The results obtained from this research suggest the effects of the Lidcombe telepractice program on the reduction of stuttering in the subjects. The results of this study showed that after 15 treatment sessions, the other subjects did not manage to achieve the final criteria of the first phase of this program.The outcome of this research indicates a positive effect of the Lidcombe telepractice program on the reduction of stuttering severity in the subjects. Nevertheless, they did not manage to approach the final criteria in the first phase of this program after joining 15 sessions.Based on these results, it can be concluded that the presentation of the Lidcombe telepractice program can be effective in reducing the severity of stuttering. However, more sessions may be required in this type of treatment, compared to the in-person one.

Bilingual children are sometimes over-identified with language impairment and sometimes their language impairment under-identified that in either case, proper intervention is not possible. Accurate measurement of bilingual child language development involves assessing both of their languages. The purpose of this study was to identify a set of measures that would discriminate language impairment in bilingual Turkish-Persian children aged 5 to 7 years in Tehran.

In this descriptive-analytical study, the language sample of 24 bilingual children with no language impairment and 8 bilingual children with language impairment was analyzed according to the linguistic measures of mean length of Terminable-unit, number of total words, number of different words, and number of grammatical errors per Terminable-unit. Children without language impairment were selected from kindergartens and schools by multi-stage cluster sampling method. Language-impaired children were selected by the Speech-Language Pathologist with at least three years of bilingual speech and language pathology services from Tehran-based speech therapy clinics in an accessible manner. There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of nonverbal intelligence, age of exposure and duration of exposure to Persian. Parents responded to questions about their perceptions of their children’s speech and language skills and family history of speech and language problems.

Diagnostic analysis indicated that 3 measures discriminated the groups of children with sensitivity 87.5%: the Parent Report Questionnaire, number of total words, and mean length of T-unit.

According to the results, Indicators of parental reports and language criteria in identifying the language damage of Turkish-Persian bilingual children can be of diagnostic use for speech and language pathologists.

Morphological awareness is one of the dimensions of metalinguistic awareness and is defined as the ability to manipulate morphemes that make up the word and knowledge of the rules of word formation. Previous studies have shown that morphological awareness contributes to literacy achievement. The purpose of the present study was to review the literature available in the context of morphological awareness and its relevance to the accuracy and comprehension of reading in different languages.

Studies conducted between 1995 and 2017 and published in the Springer, Google scholar, ASHA, Science Direct, PubMed international databases as well as domestic dissertations and journals in Magiran and SID databases were searched. Descriptive-analytic studies that could answer the research question were included in the study. The search was performed using the following keywords: morphological awareness, reading ability, reading accuracy, reading comprehension, and educational achievement. The results of 18 articles are presented in the current review study.

The results showed that children with better scores in the morphological awareness test show better results in reading comprehension. In languages such as English, morphological awareness helps to distinguish between words and thus help reading accuracy, but not in Greek. It seems that the relationship between morphological awareness and reading accuracy is different between different languages, according to language properties such as transparency.

Infant-Toddler Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (IT-MAIS) is a useful tool for the quantitative evaluation of auditory behaviors in different situations. The  present study  aimed to  develop the Persian version of IT-MAIS.  There was 4 main steps in the translation and validation of the scale, as follows: forward translation, synthesis, backward translation, and expert committee discussion. Then, the final Persian version of the scale was analyzed in terms of reliability and validity. The scale was studied on the parents of 17 hearing impaired and 17 normal hearing children. There was a significant difference in the mean score of scale between hearing impaired and normal hearing children (P≤0.001). The internal consistency of the items was satisfactory. The Cronbach’s alpha for the overall score was 0.93.  This study suggested that IT-MAIS-F can be a reliable and valid tool for the evaluation of the auditory function of children. However, the sample size of the study was small. Thus, studies with larger sample sizes are recommended. In addition, test-retest reliability of the scale was not studied.

Definition of a term is a function through which you can obtain main features of each word or the same basic information in relation to each word. One of the main problems of autistic children is a defect in language semantics. They have poor memory performance in storing vocabulary information. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of therapeutic curriculum based on semantic terms training semantic on improving word definitions skills of four high-function autistic children. The present study was quasi-experimental research in the form of a single ABA study. After studying literature and interviews with experts, a treatment program designed to needs of autistic children. After determining content validity, its effect on word definitions skill of high-function autistic children investigated. This research was among quasi-experimental case studies with ABA design. Four high-function autistic children were selected using non-randomized and straightforward convenience sampling method to participate in a 13-session therapeutic program based on semantic features. Speech and language pathologists approved the designed program, with content validity of CVR≥0.75. Then, the results of the program were evaluated using chart drawing, ocular analysis, Di Cohen effect size calculation, and recovery rate. Effect size in all four children was more than 0.8, and following a treatment program, all patients showed high rates of clinical recovery. The children obtained higher scores on the content aspect of word definition than on structural aspect. In term of content, responses to a functional, objective, particular category and second type combination and in time of structural aspect, phrase/quasi-sentence or simple sentence, vague and specific complex category responses showed the most frequencies. The planned treatment program has sufficient content validity and can be implemented in all speech therapy centers. Regarding the studies on the effect of the designed treatment plan on the content of word definition in four autistic children with high-performance and their increased scores, it can be concluded that the planned treatment program has the potential to improve their ability since the treatment results were relatively stable follow-up stage. Also, increasing rates of higher-level responses may be regarded as another witness to the changes in their word definition skill, following the treatment program. It should be acknowledged that, by receiving a treatment program, these children would be able to improve their word definition skill, in a relatively short period. By comparing the results in these four children, motivation, linguistic level, family involvement in the repetition of exercises or implementation of other rehabilitation treatments in children can be mentioned as factors contributing to their improvement. Another point to note is that, in most cases, during the final treatment sessions, the gradient of change graph of the children has not been stabled yet. Until the end session, there has been an increase in scores and improvements in skills. From this observation, it can be concluded that the treatment protocol has the potential to increase the number of training sessions to enhance the children skills further.

Speech intelligibility depends on different segmental and suprasegmental speech parametrs, such as accuracy of production, intonation, voice quality, and resonance. The investigation on speech intelligibility evaluation is performed using two perceptual and acoustic. In perceptual method, speech intelligibility is investigated based on the listeners' judgement and in acoustic method, acoustic parameters related to speech are studied. The purpose of the present study was to obtain the correlation between average frequency in words and percentage of speech intelligibility in children with cochlear implant.
The present study was carried out on 18 children, aged 4-6 years, with cochlear implant. Perceptual evaluation was performed by the judgment of the listeners who were not familiar with the speech of the hearing impaired children. The evaluation was carried out based on the speech intelligibility words test in Persian language. Calculation of the frequency was done using Praat software, 5.2.25 version.
The results of the acoustic analysis showed that the average of the frequency in population studied was 294/2± 45/05 and the average of the percentage of speech intelligibility was 47/87+20/33. According to the obtained correlation factor, there is an inverse relationship between these two factors. However, considering the significance level more than 0.5, the correlation was not found to be significant.
Due to the lack of correlation between the percentages of perception of speech intelligibility and fundamental frequency, as one of the suprasegmental features of speech, according to the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that despite the effect of chain factors, such as production, as shown in some studies, this parameter does not have a significant effect on these children's speech intelligibility.

The speech intelligibility is evaluated through the perceptual and acoustic methods. In the perceptual method, the speech intelligibility is investigated using the listener’s judgment. On the other hand, in the acoustic method, the acoustic parameters related to speech are studied. This study aimed to evaluate the association between the suprasegmental components and perceptual speech intelligibility through investigating the correlation between the mean duration of speech at the word level with the percentage of speech intelligibi­lity in children with cochlear implant.
This study was conducted on 18 children with cochlear implant within the age range of 4-6 years. The participants were asked to repeat 30 selected Persian words displayed in a video show while their voices were recorded by a microphone. The evaluation of perceptual speech intelligibility was performed using the judgment of three listeners who were unfamiliar with the speech of the hearing impaired children. The speech duration was calculated through the Praat software version 5.2.25.
According to the results, the mean of words duration was 0.5140±0.098 seconds and the mean percentage of the perceptual intelligibility of the selected words was 47.78%. Furthermore, the speech duration was significantly correlated with perceptual speech intelligibility (p The speech duration plays a pro­minent role in determining the speech intelligibility in the children with cochlear implant at the word level. Therefore, this method can be applied in the clinical rehabilitation programs implemented for these children to increase their speech intelligibility in an appropriate manner.

Stuttering can negatively impact the quality of life and cause psychosocial problems for individuals who stutter. The Overall Assessment of the Speaker’s Experience of Stuttering for Adults (OASES-A) is a comprehensive psychological test containing four components in which the fourth one focuses on the quality of life. The main purpose of this study is to examine the quality of life in individuals with and without stuttering, as well as the relationship (correlation) between stuttering severity and each component of OASES-A test in people who stutter.
Fifty-six adults with stuttering and 56 adults without stuttering participated in this cross-sectional study, and they were matched on age, sex, educational level, and vocation. The stratified random sampling method was used for the survey. The Stuttering Severity Instrument was used to evaluate the severity of stuttering through the oral reading of a 200-word (448-syllabic) text. Similarly, the quality of life was determined by the overall assessment of the speaker’s experience of stuttering. Afterward, independent t-test, Chi-square test, correlation test, Levene’s test, and Spearman’s correlation coefficient were employed to analyze the relationship between quality of life and the components of the OASES test. The data analysis was performed with SPPS version 16.
Our results showed that the mean quality of life score of people who stutter was higher than that of non-stuttering people, and this difference was statistically significant (P0.68), gender (P>0.9), education level (P>0.65), and vocation (occupation) (P>0.92).
Based on the OASES-A characteristics, people who stutter had a lower level of quality of life. It was also found that the quality of life of people with mild and moderate stages of stuttering was better than the people at severe and very severe stages. In addition, age, gender, education, and vocation were found to affect the quality of life. Therefore, it is important to make positive changes in the psychological aspect of the assessment and treatment processes of adults with stuttering. In addition, attitude should be considered for better interactions in daily communications and to improve the quality of life.

Awareness of the nasality norm condition in normal people’s speech (children and adults) is very important for assessment and treatment of nasality disorders. The main goal of this study was to determine normative nasalance scores among Persian-speaking adults.
Material and In this descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study, nasalance value of 152 adults (54 males and 98 females) older than 18 years was examined by access method. Nasality test which included vowels (front/back, high/low), syllables (with oral and nasal consonants), words (with oral and nasal consonants), and sentences (with oral and nasal consonants) was done using Nasometer II model 6450. The data were then analyzed using paired t- test and Wilcoxon statistical test.
The results indicate that the nasalance mean score for back vowels is significantly higher than front vowels. Also, the amount of nasalance mean score for low vowels is significantly higher than that in high vowels. The results also indicate that the nasalance mean scores for syllables, words, and sentences with nasal consonants is significantly higher than those with oral consonants (P The results of the present study have provided the mean scores of nasalance for vowels, syllables, words, and sentences separately with oral and nasal consonants in normal Persian-speaking adults. Also, the data obtained in this study can be used to compare the function of the resonance system in people with suspected resonant disorders.

One of the factors predicting language impairments is an early limited lexicon in children. An early limited lexicon can also lead to limited performances in other language areas. This study was aimed to examine receptive and expressive vocabulary in 8-16 month-old children with cleft lip and palate as a predictor of development in other language areas.
Materials: The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI) was used to collect data. Thirty children with cleft palate/lip and palate who had visited the Isfahan’s cleft lip and palate team were analyzed and compared to 30 children without cleft lip and palate.
According to the study results, there was no significant difference between the children with cleft lip and palate and the normal children in terms of the number of words, but the children with cleft lip and palate had significantly less expressive vocabulary than the normal children.
The results indicated that children with cleft lip and palate experience a delay in the development of the number of expressive vocabulary, and this delay affects higher levels of language, reading and writing skills of these children. This indicates the importance of providing early evaluations and interventions for children with cleft lip and palate.

Phonological awareness skill is an integrated ability that is manifested in three skills including syllable, intra syllabic and phoneme awareness. As the results of many researches show that lower levels of phonological awareness are developmental precursors to higher levels of phonological awareness, the aim of this study is to explore development of syllable blending skill as an aspect of syllable awareness in 3-5 years-Old Persian speaking children.
It was a descriptive-analytic cross sectional study. 120 normal Persian speaking children, 60 girls and 60 boys in 4 age groups were randomly selected from Qom city kindergartens. The participants were monolingual. The research instrument was a task made by researcher consisting of 10 items whose validity and reliability were confirmed by preliminary findings. Each response was scored as correct (1) or incorrect (0). Non-responses were also scored as incorrect. Data were analyzed using SPSSversion-19.
more than half of children aged between 3 to 3.5 years old successfully completed the task of syllable blending. Children's ability to combine the 2 syllables was better than 3 syllables, and in combination 3 syllables together more than 4 syllables (P The result of this study showed that 4 years old children, gain syllable blending skill, the fact that must be taken into more consideration in screening, diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Also, in the evaluation of this skill, the number of syllables must be considered.

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 & 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 speech and language hearing impairment¡ speech sound¡ 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.

Speech intelligibility is an important index of verbal communication skill among a variety of disorders such as hearing impairment. Assessment of such intelligibility holds different important issues. One of the best procedures is to obtain a conversational speech in such cases. The main goal of this study was to examine the possibility of replacing sentence repetition task in aforementioned patients` conversation and assess their intelligibility values. Twenty-six, 4-7 years old sensorineural hearing impaired children with moderate to profound degrees, were selected. Inclusive patients were those who referred to Karaj`s educational and rehabilitation center, during first six months of 2013. They were requested to repeat the sentences expressed by the evaluator, after watching the targeted educational videos. Subjects’ conversational speech qualities were taken by answering the questions in regard to different issues such as birthday parties, class tasks, and travels. The responds of 104 listeners were recorded and divided into four groups: naïve, mother, less and fully experienced expert. The percent of the words which recognized accurately by listeners to their total expressed words were calculated. The data analyzed with paired t-test. The outcome showed, in all listeners, their mean of conversational speech intelligibility was less than their mean of sentence intelligibility (0/001 >p). It may be concluded, there is no evidences of using sentences repetition task can be implied as an alternative measure of conversational speech in hearing impaired intelligibility measurement.

this research was designed to study the effect of listeners’ experience on their judgment about speech intelligibility of hearing impaired (HI) children.

Twenty-six 4 to 7 years HI children were selected with readily available sampling from a rehabilitation center in Karaj, Iran. Conversation speech sample of each child was recorded digitally. Four listeners group (mother, naive, less experienced and experienced) listened to these recordings. Listeners had to express whatever understood. Their sayings matched to children speech and children speech intelligibility calculated. Data were analyzed with repeated measures method.

Analysis showed that judgment of four listener groups about speech intelligibility of HI children was significantly different. Paired comparison of speech intelligibility means showed that only judgment of naive and less experienced listeners were not significantly different.

In clinical setting, evaluation of HI speech intelligibility relates to familiarization of listener with this type of speech.