atusa rabiee

There is a wealth of research done in developed countries on the investigation of the working memory (WM) performance in people with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) (IQ>70), with different reported findings. There is a dearth of similar studies in developing countries. In addition, the findings suggest that WM is possibly influenced by culture. The present study investigated WM performance and its relationship with the symptoms of ASD and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

The present study is a cross-sectional comparative study between two groups of participants with high-functioning ASD, aged 8-16 years (n=30) and typically developing (n=30). This study was conducted in 2016-2017 in Tehran (Iran). The Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVA) was used to compare the between-group differences on WM tasks. In addition, Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to examine the relationship between the ASD and ADHD symptoms with WM performance. The data were statistically analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), version 16.

It was found that in general, WM was impaired in the people with ASD. Unexpectedly, in the present study, two subscales of Social interaction and Stereotyped Behaviors of the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-Second Edition showed a significant positive correlation respectively with a score of two WM tasks, i.e. Visual Digit Span and Digit Span Forward.

These results showed that WM was impaired in individuals with ASD and that could have implications for intervention, but it is necessary that therapists be careful in choosing the appropriate tasks for intervention.

Past studies have documented working memory impairment in participants with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (IQ>70), but inconsistent findings have been reported. One possibility is the existence of verbal responses in the evaluation of working memory performance. The aim of the current study is to examine the working memory performance and its correlation with a prominent deficit in participants with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders by non-verbal working memory tasks compared with typically developing samples. The current study is a cross-sectional, comparative study. The working memory performance of the 30 participants with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (7-16 years) and 30 typically developing was compared by working memory subtests of the Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised in Tehran, Iran. Two groups were matched for age and gender. ANOVA, ANCOVA, repeated measures ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data statistically. The significance value was set at p<0.05. The results showed that if the effect of FSIQ (full-scale intelligence quotient) were controlled individuals with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders exhibited significant impairment in the Reverse Memory subtest (p=0.001). Also, unpredictably Forward Memory (r=0.38, p=0.03) and Reverse Memory tasks (r=0.38, p=0.03) displayed a significant positive correlation with the Social interaction subscale of the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (Second Edition). It seems that nonverbal working memory is impaired in persons with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders. Results of the current study revealed that factors like complexity and cognitive load of tasks may influence working memory performance in individuals with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Rapid naming is one of the components of phonological processing that have been studied in dyslexic children. Most of the dyslexic children have difficulties in rapid naming of visual stimulus, especially stimulants which require fast access and retrieval sequence of verbal numeric labels. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of programs designed to increase rapid naming of letters in third grade elementary students with dyslexia.This study was an interventional study with pretest-posttest and a control group. Eighteen third grade dyslexic students participated in this study. Before and after the intervention, rapid naming test were conducted. Participants were divided randomly into two groups. The experimental group participated in 10 sessions of therapy. To compare the clinical efficacy, the data obtained were analyzed with independent t-test, paired t in SPSS 19 and effect size. Data analysis showed that rapid naming of letters increased in both groups with different effect size, such that the training group went from 44.11 before the intervention to 26 and the control group went from 49.11 to 44.77. The speed of naming between the two groups after treatment showed a significant difference (p <0.05). The results of statistical analysis showed that the mean rapid naming letters are significantly different in the two groups after the intervention. Given the size of the effect in the experimental group than the control group, it can be concluded that the program designed, improved speed of naming skills in dyslexic students.

The goal of this study is to examine some of the narrative skills (The total number of words and Mean length of utterance) in three groups of children (normal, cochlear implant and intellectual disability) between the ages 4-5 and identification of spots which have been impaired in two groups of delayed speech and language developmentThis cross sectional descriptive analytic research was conducted on 26 typically normal children and 30 children with delayed speech and language development (15 cochlear implants and 15 Intellectual Disability children) in a convenient sampling method. Data collected via describing a picture. Then the children are asked to retell the story for 7 minutes. After transcription, the total number of words and the mean length of utterance were calculated based on the two scales of morpheme and word. Data entered into SPSS21 software and analyzed using the. test parametric Mann-Whitney¬ U and nonparametric Independent - Samples TFindings indicated that the mean total number of words was 47 in normal children and 36/6 in children with intellectual disability. These differences were significant (p<0/05). Whereas was no noticeable difference in two groups of normal and cochlear implant children in the number of total words (p>0/05). Mean Length of Utterance obtained 4/58, 4/12, 3/71 in the normal, cochlear implants, and intellectual disability children ordinarily. Therefore, there was a significant difference between the three groups of children in this variable (p<0/05The result indicated maybe low IQ has more impact on the total number of words than hearing loss after cochlear implant. While the mean length of utterance affected by both hearing loss and IQ

Hyperlexia is a super ability demonstrated by a very specific group of individuals with developmental disorders. This term is used to describe the children with high ability in word recognition, but low reading comprehension skills, despite the problems in language, cognitive and social skills. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of improving the semantic aspect of language (increase in understanding and expression vocabulary) on reading comprehension in an autistic child with hyperlexia.Case: The child studied in this research was an autistic child with hyperlexia. At the beginning of this study he was 3 years and 11 months old. He could read, but his reading comprehension was low. In a period of 12 therapy session, understanding and expression of 160 words was taught to child. During this period, the written form of words was eliminated. After these sessions, the reading comprehension was re-assessed for the words that child could understand and express. Improving semantic aspect of language (understanding and expression of vocabulary) increase reading comprehension of written words.

Children with severe and profound hearing loss have difficulties in communicating with others and educating at school. Effects of learning environment on children''s language skills have been recently focused and educating those students in ordinary schools has been proposed. According to this view، we compared perception of antonyms and synonyms as a semantic aspect of language in students of ordinary، integrated and special schools. It was an analytic cross-sectional study. Three groups of students were enrolled: normal-hearing students of ordinary schools and hearing-loss students of integrated and specials schools. Each group consisted of 25 students in fifth grade of elementary schools in Tehran city. Two written tests were used. Subjects wrote synonyms and antonyms for each word in the tests. Results denoted significant differences between scores of normal-hearing and hearing-loss students and also between hearing-loss students of integrated schools and hearing-loss students of special schools (p<0. 05). In all three groups of the students، perception of antonyms was better than antonyms (p<0. 001). Speech processing rate in normal-hearing students were higher than both groups of hearing-loss students (p<0. 001). The differences between normal-hearing and hearing-loss students shows that similar to other language skills، perception of synonyms and antonyms as a semantic aspect of speech is related to the hearing conditions and type of education. Moreover، the differences between two groups of hearing-loss students represent that speech stimulants and interaction with normal-hearing children could improve semantic aspect of speech in hearing-loss students.

Substantial delays in spoken language acquisition have been documented for children with severe to profound hearing loss. Accordingly, areas of linguistic research in this population have shifted from measuring vocabulary size to studies designed to understand word learning processes including semantic development. The purpose of this study was to determine the differences between students with hearing loss and their normal peers on the grounds of synonym comprehension. 78 fifth graders who were all resident in Isfahan participated in this descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study. Of this number, fifty-two students had normal hearing ability and remaining twenty-four ones had hearing loss attending special education classes. The data of interest were gathered via two paper-based tests in which synonyms of each word should be written once in the context of a sentence and once out of such context by each subject. Hearing-loss and normal-hearing groups significantly differed from each other in both tests (P < 0.05). All students in both groups had significantly higher ability in understanding synonyms when words were embedded in the context of a sentence than on the occasions in which target words represented out of the context (P < 0.05). Due to differences between hearing and hearing-loss students, it seems that the semantic category of synonym words is affected by hearing impairment as are other language areas. In addition, the different performance of subjects in two tests implies that synonyms extracted from the context are more difficult than synonyms embedded in a semantic context.