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Objectives: The mother’s knowledge and attitude about the child’s developmental norms can affect their practice and the quality of parent-child interaction. The quality of a child’s development in the early years significantly impacts their personality and future success. Therefore, this study aims to develop and investigate the psychometric characteristics of the Iranian mother’s knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) questionnaire about the development of communication, language, speech, and swallowing of Persian-speaking children aged 18 to 36 months and comparing them. Methods: This study was a descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study conducted on 280 mothers with typically developed children aged 18 to 36 months from different provinces of Iran. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic with the implementation of the study, the participants were selected as available, and then the snowball completed the questionnaire in both face-to-face and online methods. To check the validity of the questionnaire, face validity was calculated using the opinion of speech therapy experts and ten mothers, and content validity was calculated using the Lawshe method. To check the reliability of the questionnaire, the test re-test method was used in a two-week interval. Results: The results indicated that this questionnaire has high validity (content validity index [CVI] >0.79) and reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC]=0.90). The multiple linear regression model showed that only the mother’s age has a significant positive relationship with knowledge ([B=0.082] P=0.04) about the development of communication, language, speech, and swallowing of children aged 18 to 36 months. Socioeconomic status and the mother’s education had no significant relationship with the mother’s KAP. Also, this study showed that the mother’s knowledge, attitude, and practice about a child’s development were high (mean=16.5), positive (mean=56.44), and good (mean=60.27). Discussion: This study showed that the designed questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool that can be used to investigate the mother’s KAP about the development of communication, language, speech, and swallowing of Persian-speaking children aged 18 to 36 months. On the other hand, speech and language pathologists can use this questionnaire in related studies and clinical evaluations to have better and more knowledge of the child’s environment and the factors affecting it in Persian-speaking society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives The present study aims to investigate the effect of a temporal processing-based auditory training program on alleviating stuttering severity in children diagnosed with auditory temporal processing disorders. Materials & Methods Thirty-one children with stuttering diagnosed with auditory temporal processing disorders participated in this study (intervention group: 17 participants between seven to 12 years old; control group: 14 participants between eight to 12 years old). The auditory temporal processing test and Stuttering Severity Instrument-3 (SSI-3) were examined before/after 12 sessions (nearly 540 minutes) of training and three months following the conclusion of the intervention. Results According to the results, auditory temporal processing improved significantly in the intervention group after temporal processing-based auditory training. Besides, the differences between the intervention and control groups were significant (P<0.05). The improvement of auditory temporal processing skills remained stable in the posttraining evaluation after three months (P>0.05). Although the SSI-3 score was somewhat improved in the intervention group, no significant difference was found between the two groups (P=0.984). Conclusion The findings revealed that auditory temporal processing training acted as a complementary therapy alleviating the stuttering severity of children who stutter with auditory temporal processing disorders to some extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The processing of sensory-motor aspect of word's meaning, and its difference between nouns and verbs, is the main topic of neurolinguistic research. The present study aimed to examine the lexical-semantic processing of Persian non-action nouns and action verbs. The possible effects of semantic correlates on noun/verb dissociation were evaluated without morphological confound. A total of 62 neurologically intact Persian speakers responded to a computerized semantic similarity judgment task, including 34 triplets of non-action nouns and 34 triplets of action verbs by pressing a key. Response Time (RT) and percentage error were considered as indirect measures of lexical-semantic encoding efficiency. We also assessed the latency of hand movement execution with no linguistic demand. The results showed that action verbs elicited more errors and had slower RT compared with object nouns. Mixed ANOVA revealed that the observed noun/verb distinction was not affected by demographic factors. These results provided evidence that the lexical-semantic encoding of Persian action verbs, compared to non-action nouns, requires more support from cognitive sources‏ ‏during the processing of the motor‏-‏related semantic feature. The possible accounts for the different processing of action verbs in terms of semantic view are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective 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. Materials & Methods 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. Results 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). Conclusion 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the consequences of a stroke inhumanis a foreign accentual syndrome, which is often caused by trauma or stroke. One of the most important injuries in this syndrome is a disruption in prosodic units. The present report is about a 47-year-old woman with a brain tumorwhospeaks with a different accent than hers. Acoustic analyses were performed using the Praat software version 6.0.35. This paper indicates consistency with most of the damage reports in prosodic units, including stress, rhythm, pause, and speed of speech. Significant changes occurred in the prosodic units of the patient under study within 12 weeks. In addition to the decrease in the number of pauses and speech duration of the patient, pitch variations, increased coordination, and precision in articulation, also an increase in the expression of the number of words was observed during the patient's speech. Due to the rarity of foreign accent syndrome, further research in this area is important for speech and language pathologists in terms of differential diagnosis and speech therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Brain trauma evidences suggest that the two grammatical categories of noun and verb are processed in different regions of the brain due to differences in the complexity of grammatical and semantic information processing. Studies have shown that the verbs belonging to different semantic categories lead to neural activity in different areas of the brain, and action verb processing is related to the activity of motor and pre-motor areas of the brain. Researchers use different tasks to evaluate action verb processing. The most common tasks are action naming and action fluency tasks. Although these types of tasks are sensitive to deficits in action verb processing, they do not specify the nature of the injury. To understand whether dysfunction in action verb processing is due to difficulty in lexical access or specific impairment in semantic processing, it is necessary to design a specific test to evaluate lexical-semantic processing. Semantic Similarity Judgment (SSJ) test targets the lexical-semantic encoding at a deep and controlled processing level. The purpose of the present study was to develop a SSJ test for Persian action verbs and non-action nouns and determine its content validity. Materials & Methods In this methodological study, 70 Persian action concrete verbs and 80 Persian nonaction concrete nouns were first selected. For each word, a semantically related word based on functional, physical, categorical features and similarity in action was selected according to the opinion of 4 experts (3 speech-language pathologists and one linguist) using a 7-point scale. For semantic similarity rating, only the pairs of words with a high semantic similarity score (5 to 7) remained and the rest were omitted. Then, for each pair of semantically related words, a semantically unrelated word was selected. After determining content validity qualitatively by three experts and removing inappropriate items, for matching the two sets of nouns and verbs, the lexical and psycholinguistic characteristics of the remaining words (207 nouns and 156 verbs) including frequency, number of syllables, phonemes, letters, phonological and orthographic neighbors, action association, imageability, familiarity and age of acquisition were extracted by 18 volunteers (13 speech-language pathologists and linguists and 5 parents selected by a convenience sampling method) based on a 7-point scale. The verbs with low action associations and the nouns with high action association were removed and then, the two sets of words were matched for other lexical and psycholinguistic characteristics. Finally, 34 triples of verbs with high action association and 34 triples of nouns with low action association were selected. In both noun and verb sets, the words were chosen in such a way that, in order to judge, the semantic features of the words need to be carefully considered. Data analysis was performed using descriptive statistics and independent t-test. Results The results revealed that there was no statistically significant difference in the mean of lexical and psycholinguistic characteristics (P≥0.05), except in action association between two sets of verbs (5.86±0.51) and nouns (1.92±0.45) (P=0.000). Action association rating revealed that the present set of action verbs evoked stronger action associations than nouns. Independent t-test results for triplets showed no statistically significant difference in the mean word length in each triplet including the number of syllables, phonemes and letters (P≥0.05). Conclusion The designed SSJ test with 102 action verbs and 102 non-action nouns was developed in 68 triplets. It enables the comparison of two different grammatical categories, and can be used to evaluate action word processing at a controlled level. It can also be used to test the hypotheses of embodied cognition theory in order to evaluate the role of motor system and the impact of damage to this system on the linguistic and cognitive functions, especially in patients with neuromotor and cognitive impairments such as aphasia, dementia, developmental and acquired stuttering, Parkinson's disease or other motor disorders in medical centers and for research and intervention purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Fluent speech requires inhibitory control for the modification of speech interruptions before the onset or during the speech. The current study aimed at comparing the inhibitory control skill in 6 to 8-year-old children with fluent speech and developmental stuttering. Materials and Methods: This research is a descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study. The participants included 31 children with developmental stuttering (6-8 years old) selected based on the convenience sampling method. Also, 32 healthy children were selected from elementary schools in Tehran Province that matched in terms of age and gender with the first group. The children of two groups were selected from the same district (The fifth district) of Tehran Province. Visual Go/No-Go task was used to measure inhibitory control. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the groups. Results: The result showed that the mean score of children with stuttering in the inhibition index was lower than normal children. According to the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the data distribution was not normal (P=0.042). Therefore, the parametric test of the Mann- Whitney U test was used. Despite the lower mean score of inhibition in children with stuttering than healthy children, there was no significant difference in the inhibition index between the groups (P=0.550). Conclusion: The findings indicated that Children Who Stutter (CWS) had less efficiency in inhibitory control skill compared to normal children, and this problem could be because of the exacerbation or persistence of stuttering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The success of rehabilitation centers depends on several factors, one of the most important of which is patient's satisfaction. Therefore, suitable instruments must be used to assess the quality of services in rehabilitation centers. Materials and Methods: In this research, we used the random sampling method to select the sample and the survey research method to collect data. The statistical population included all patients visiting the selected rehabilitation centers of Tehran City. In this regard, 4 rehabilitation centers; Rofaydeh Rehabilitation Hospital (public), Shohadaye Tajrish Hospital (public), Imam Zadeh Hassan Rehabilitation Center (private), and Arman Rehabilitation Center (private) were selected. Given the infinite statistical population size, the sample size was calculated using the scientific research methodology and Cochran's sample size formula. The statistical sample size estimated for the infinite statistical population of this research was 486 with 95% confidence level. The research variables were assessed using a researcher-made questionnaire called the "patient's satisfaction with rehabilitation services questionnaire". The content and face validity of the questionnaire was approved by the experts. The estimated reliability of the questionnaire was 0.83 using Cronbach's α coefficient method. The descriptive and inferential statistics methods (i.e. the independent t test and 1-way analysis of variance) were used to analyze the data. Results: The research findings reflected the clients' satisfaction with the rehabilitation services and their components (i.e. reception services, therapist services, and waiting time) in public and private hospitals. Also a significant difference was found between the levels of patients' satisfaction with rehabilitation services in private and public hospitals (P≤0.005), and clients were more satisfied with the services of public hospitals than private hospitals. Conclusion: In addition, there was no significant difference between the levels of patients' satisfaction with rehabilitation services with respect to demographic variables (including age, education, gender, and respondent), but a significant difference was observed in terms of ward. Finally, the results of the Friedman test revealed that satisfaction with therapist services had the first rank followed by patient's satisfaction with the waiting time and then with reception (admission) services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: 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 Methods: 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. Results: 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<0.001). Conclusion: 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The Palin Parent Rating Scale (Palin PRS) is a structured questionnaire filled out by parents of children who stutter. It is designed to assess the effects of stuttering on both the children and their parents. The goal of this study was to translate the Palin PRS into Persian and to evaluate its validity and reliability for application in preschool children who stutter. Methods: This research was conducted from August 2021 to December 2022, involving 139 parents of children who stutter. The parents completed the Palin PRS and provided their demographic data. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the floor and ceiling effects on all subscales of the Palin PRS. The internal consistency of the scale was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha method, while the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was calculated to determine its test-retest reliability. An exploratory factor analysis was also performed to clarify the factor structure of the scale. Results: The exploratory factor analysis results were highly consistent with the factor structure found in the original version. No floor or ceiling effects were observed for the factors of the Palin PRS. The three factors of the Persian version of the Palin PRS (P-Palin PRS) showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha >0.8) and excellent test-retest reliability (ICC >0.9). Additionally, normative scores were derived by converting raw scores into Stanine scores. Conclusion: The P-Palin PRS showed strong reliability, thereby establishing it as a suitable instrument for evaluating how parents perceive the effects of stuttering on their children and themselves. Further research may explore its application in diverse clinical settings and populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]