فهرست مطالب yoones amiri shavaki

Semantics is one of the most important aspects of language acquisition the development of which maybe deviated in severe and profound hearing-impaired. The more words Deaf learned, the better they can communicate with their audience and understand the correct meaning of spoken and written messages of others. This study reports on the development of a lexical-semantic test and investigates its validity and reliability in adults with severe to profound hearing loss.

For the development of the test, a list of high frequency words including 120 words appropriate for literate adults was gathered. Then each word was placed in a sentence context for the purpose of contextualization. Afterwards, some choices were selected according to Haladyna rules. Content validity was assessed according to experts’ ratings and finally 44 questions remained. The test was administered to 35 participants (19 females and 16 males) with severe to profound hearing loss with school diploma, upper diploma and Bachelor of Science, while a group of 35 participants with normal hearing was considered as the control group.

The overall average of content validity ratio and index were obtained respectively +1 and 0.923. Cronbach's alpha value was equal to 0.918. In correlation between test-retest scores, there was a positive significant correlation between the scores (r=0.893, p<0.001). Hearing impaired girls’ mean score in comparison with boys’ was significantly higher (p<0.001). There were significant differences in the different educational levels (p= 0.032).

The test enjoyed high reliability and validity indices. The mean score of the girls was more than that of the boys. The higher the level of education of hearing impaired persons, the higher their performance on the lexical-semantic test.

The lack of screening test battery has made it difficult for early identification and intervention of Persian-speaking children with risk of reading problems prior to formal education. The purpose of this study was to develop and introduce a Persian prereading test battery based on the multidimensional reading perspective for screening preschool children.

First, the predicators of reading skill and dyslexia along with the subscales of each predictor were identified through literature review and holding expert’s panel. The batteries of tests were performed on 48 typically-developing children (5.6–6.6 years old) selected using the random (cluster) method. The Pearson correlation coefficient, item analysis and then reliability were measured.

The 5-component test battery with 8 subtests was formed. Findings indicated there were moderate and significant correlations between subtests (all r>0.4, p<0.001). Internal consistency reliability for the subscales was 0.51 to 0.89.

The Persian test battery of prereading skills including phonological awareness, identification of first and closing phonemes, visual discrimination skill, rapid automatic naming and phonological working memory may identify children who are at risk. A longitudinal study is warranted to evaluate its detailed psychometric properties.

  To date, there is no specific instrument to measure evidence-based practice (EBP) in Speech and Language Pathology (SLP). Therefore, it is essential to design a valid and reliable instrument in the EBP field for SLP. To develop a speech and language pathology evidence-based practice questionnaire (SLP-EBPQ) for the Iranian context and evaluate its psychometric properties. This study was performed in two stages, first development of the instrument based on the literature review and semi-structured interviews with 14 speech and language pathologists and second the evaluation of the psychometric properties. Content validity of the instrument was assessed by SLP experts who were experienced in the field of EBP. Furthermore, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and comparison of the recognized groups were conducted to determine the initial construct validity of the SLP-EBPQ. The reliability of the questionnaire was determined using internal consistency and test-retest reliability. A total of 280 speech and language pathologists completed SLP-EBPQ to evaluate construct validity and internal consistency. Furthermore, 30 speech and language pathologists completed the SLP-EBPQ after 2 weeks for test-retest reliability. The developed instrument was a questionnaire with 77 items. The results of EFA demonstrated that the SLP-EBPQ contained nine factors with appropriate internal consistency (α=0.635-0.885). Moreover, the Intra-class Correlation coefficient of the factors was (r=0.814-0.966) in the test-retest reliability.
Implications for Practice: The SLP-EBPQ is a valid and reliable instrument and can be applied to evaluate EBP among speech and language pathologists for educational, clinical, or research purposes.

Formant structure is an important feature of vowels in any language. The formant structure of any vowel can be a function of gender. This study investigated the formant structure of six Persian vowels used in the speech of Turkish speakers aged 18-28 years old.
This is a descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study. A total of 30 male (N=15) and female (N= 15) 18-28 year old participants were recruited from among Turkish speaking students studying at Iranian University of Medical Sciences. The fundamental frequency and three first formants of each of six Persian vowels were recorded by Praat software. Independent samples-t test and Mann U Whitney were used to analyze the data.
Among male participants, the lowest fundamental frequency was related to /æ/ vowel with a mean of 120 Hz, the highest being /i/ vowel with a mean of 128 Hz. The lowest first formant was related to /i/ vowel with a mean of 280 Hz, the highest being /æ/ vowel with mean of 693 Hz. The highest second formant was related to /o/ vowel with a mean of 931 Hz, the lowest being /i/ vowel with mean of 2135 Hz. The lowest third formant was related to /æ/ vowel with mean of 2554 Hz, the highest being /i/ vowel with mean of 2927 Hz. Among the female participants, the lowest fundamental frequency was related to /æ/ vowel with mean of 219 Hz, the highest being /i/ vowel with mean of 249 Hz. The lowest first formant was related to /i/ vowel with mean of 348 Hz, the highest being /æ/ vowel with mean of 943 Hz. The lowest second formant was related to /u/ vowel with mean of 771 Hz, the highest being /i/ vowel with mean of 2686 Hz. The lowest third formant was related to /æ/ vowel with mean of 2815 Hz, the highest being /i/ vowel with mean of 3303 Hz. All the differences between male and female participants were significant except for the first and third formant in /u/ vowel, second formant in /o/ vowel and third formant in /a/ vowel (p It can be concluded gender is not only a factor for a differences of fundamental frequency, but it also can account for differences in vowel space of Persian vowels in the speech Turkish male and female speakers. It seems that the significant greater amount of fundamental frequency of all of vowels in females can be the result of smaller dimensions of larynx, and smaller length and mass of vocal tract, though part of this difference may be a function of other factors such as language or dialect. The significant greater amount of first formant of female participants shows the higher position of tongue in females during production of the vowels. Reduction in second formant with more posterior vowels shows the smaller distance between the narrowest place of articulators and larynx. Vowel space in female participants was greater than that in males, obviously in front vowels. Therefore, it seems necessary to replicate this study in some other languages or dialects for closer study of gender's effect and other factors such as language or dialect.

Hearing impairment affects all aspects of life, including communication and various aspects of linguistic knowledge. Grammatical errors (morphological and syntactic) can be seen clearly in their speech and writing. The purpose of this study was to compare the grammatical errors of verb in the writing of adults with severe hearing impairments. In this cross-sectional analytic study, 70 adults with severe hearing impairments (35 from each group) were selected by inclusion criteria and then were evaluated. For data collection, the writing assignment designed with good Content Validity Index (CVI) was used. The collected data were analyzed using independent t-test and nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test. The results showed that there is a significant difference between mean percent of errors of verbs in two groups with severe hearing impairments(p<0.05).Mean percent of different types of errors included omission, errors of tense, substitution, and errors of agreement of verb and subject in present, past and future tenses (p<0.05). Adults with hearing impairment in comparison with severe hearing impaired adults have more grammatical errors in verb category.

The goal of this project was to study the possibility of improving intelligibility of speech without relying on auditory feedback and upon relying on other senses like kinesthetic, visual and tactile senses. Methodes & Materials: Intelligibility of a prelingually deaf adult was measured in the intended contexts of /x/ sound and /xa/ syllable before and after treatment. For assessment of intelligibility before and after treatment ‘Item Identification’ and ‘Rating Scale’ methods were used. The intervention was carried out through 10 one-hour sessions, held thrice a week. Based on three native Farsi Speakers’ judgments, the intelligibility of the /x/ sound and the /xa/ syllable improved from unintelligible to intelligible before and after the intervention. Based on the rating scale, the average improvement rate in both items was estimated at 86.67%. The treatment provided increased the intelligibility of speech in the aforementioned contexts. We may, therefore, conclude that intelligibility can improve without relying on the auditory sense and upon relying on other senses.

Nasality is an important parameter needing to be considered in studying voice resonance pathology. The voice of normal adults typically shows varying degrees of nasality. It appears that nasality, like the other parameters of voice, is affected by loudness and this can be measured through experimental evaluations. The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of vocal loudness on vowel nasalance in a group of 18-28 year-old normal Farsi- speaking subjects. In this descriptive- analytic cross- sectional study, the voice samples of 65 randomly selected normal subjects (male and female) whose ages ranged from 18 to 28 years and who spoke Farsi as their native language were studied. All subjects were the students of Rehabilitation Faculty of Iran Medical Sciences University at the time of study. The mean score of nasalance for the vowels of Farsi language was captured through Nasal View software. Descriptive statistical analyses as well as one-way ANOVA were conducted on all data of interest. In both male and female subjects, the maximum and minimum amounts of nasalance were seen at the soft and the loud voice respectively. The statistical analysis results showed that the degree of nasalance in 3 levels of soft, normal and loud voices was significantly different (P < 0.05). In normal adults, vowel nasalance decreases as vocal loudness increases. This is a feature of normal speech mechanism. This finding can be explained with regard to the functioning of velopharengeal port. So, a raise in subglottal air pressure at loud voice results in an increase in muscular contraction of pharynx and palate.