syntax

Intellectual disability and specific cognition in down syndrome (DS) affect language development and processing. We assessed vocabulary and syntax reception among children with DS with typically developed (TD) Persian-speaking Iranian children. We also investigated the association between vocabulary and syntax reception in children with DS.

Using the Stanford–Binet intelligence scales test, 18 TD children (4-6 years old) and 18 DS children were matched based on non-verbal mental age. Vocabulary reception was assessed using the receptive picture vocabulary test (RPVT) and syntax reception by the Persian syntax comprehension test.

Mean total vocabulary reception was lower in children with DS (P<0.001). Syntax reception was also impaired in children with DS compared to the normal values of the test. Among children with DS, vocabulary reception was positively correlated with syntax reception. Every unit increase in total vocabulary reception score was associated with 0.08 (95% confidence interval, CI: 0.04-0.12) improvement in syntax score in children with DS.

Vocabulary and syntax reception in DS children, especially complex syntax structures, was impaired. The observed association between vocabulary and syntax reception shows that vocabulary reception improvement might result in progressing syntax reception in children with DS.

Cleft Palate (CP) with or without Cleft Lip (CL/P) are the most common craniofacial birth defects. Cleft Lip and Palate (CLP) can affect children’s communication skills. The present study aimed to evaluate language production skills concerning morphology and syntax (morphosyntactic) in children with CLP.

In the current cross-sectional study, 58 Persian-speaking children (28 children with CLP & 30 children without craniofacial anomalies=non-clefts) participated. Gathering the language samples of the children was conducted using the picture description method. The 50 consecutive intelligible utterances of children were analyzed by the Persian Developmental Sentence Scoring (PDSS), as a clinical morphosyntactic measurement tool.

The PDSS total scores of children with CLP were lower than those of the non-clefts children. A significant difference was found between the studied children with CLP and children without craniofacial anomalies in the mean value of PDSS total scores (P=0.0001). 

Children with CLP demonstrate a poor ability for using morphosyntactic elements. Therefore, it should be considered how children with CLP use the grammatical components.

This paper aims to review the recent linguistic research carried out with the help of fMRI.

We performed a comprehensive search on ProQuest and Scopus search engines using keywords: "functional MRI", "fMRI", and "linguistics", "phonetics", "semantics", and their synonyms, yielding to a total of 343 articles. We included 23 articles based on full-text review which conducted original research on different aspects of language processing using fMRI. Studies regarding applied linguistics, as well as studies using subjects with any neuropsychological disorders, were excluded.

Included studies were categorized according to the language areas they investigated, including phonetics and phonological processing; semantics; and syntax. The results show that the auditory cortex of both hemispheres is responsible for phonological comprehension of language at the first level, followed by left dominant processing of suprasegmental language in the superior temporal gyrus and the inferior frontal cortices and the supplementary motor area. During semantic processing of the language, lexical entry takes place in the medial temporal lobe and the hippocampus, while sentential semantic aspects of the language are predominantly processed in the left anterior temporal cortex. The BA 44 area is the major active region during syntax processing.

The experimental methods in studying language such as fMRI and other neurolinguistics techniques could provide scientific evidence for proving theoretical assumption. Besides, results of such researches can help other scientific developments such as brain mapping and pre-surgical planning.

The current study sought to investigate the impact of linguistic modification of medical textbooks on reading comprehension ability of medical students and their attitude towards text simplification.

 150 male and female medical students coming from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences participated in this study. The homogeneity of the participants was attained through passing a placement test, followed by completing the pre-requisite and general English courses.  For the purpose of modifying the texts, the framework proposed by Van Den Branden (2000) was adopted. Moreover, the questionnaire developed by Saito, Horwitz, and Garza (1999) called Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale (FLRAS) was used.

Data analysis was conducted, using one-way analysis of variances (ANOVA). Concerning the major research question, analysis of the data indicated that there were significant differences between the participants’ performance on the four reading tests. Thus, the major null-hypothesis as “lexical modification, grammatical modification, and lexical and grammatical modification in comparison with no modification of input do not significantly affect the reading comprehension ability of Iranian medical students differently” was rejected. The last research question deals with medical students’ perceptions towards different types of input modifications 

The overwhelming majority of the interviewees chose lexically and grammatically modified texts. However, “not modified text” was regarded as the most boring one. Also, the participants believed that grammatically modified texts were best for improving students’ work knowledge. Moreover, the interviewees mentioned that grammatically modified texts with fewer complicated structures were more straightforward for them.

To study sentence comprehension in Persian-speaking Patients with Aphasia considering the factors of complexity. In this cross-sectional study, the performance of 6 non-fluent aphasic patients were tested and their performance was compared to 15 matched control group. Comprehension of semantically reversible sentences was assessed using a binary sentence-picture matching task. The stimuli were as follows: clefts; subject clefts and object clefts, also relative clauses; subject relatives and object relatives. All of them were types of movement-derived structures and also simple declarative sentences as the control task. The best performance of aphasic patients were seen in the comprehension of subject clefts, although prior to this result we assumed that simple declarative sentences (in which there is no structural factor of complexity) can be understood easily. They showed the highest difficulty in the comprehension of object relatives. Furthermore, the performance of patients in the comprehension of relative clauses was significantly weaker than understanding the clefts. The outcomes of this study suggest that the sentence comprehension deficits of aphasic patients, in contrast to the specific deficit models, may not be related to linguistic disabilities. Moreover, the problems in the comprehension of non-canonical sentences may be related to failure in the allocation of attention. Finally, our results support the claims that neural characterization of the cognitive resources (e.g. working memory) is disrupted in sentence comprehension deficits.

Preterm children are at risk of deficits in language, including grammatical skills. The main purpose of this survey was to investigate whether Persian-speaking children born preterm differ in their morphosyntax ability compared to full-term children.

Morphosyntactic performance was assessed in 86 Persian-speaking children (43 healthy preterm and 43 full-term children) aged 4 and 5 years using the Persian Developing Sentence Scoring (PDSS).  Participants were matched for age, gender, and gestational age. 

The healthy preterm children who participated in this study were significantly outperformed by the full-term children in the morphosyntactic evaluation (p<0.05). Furthermore, their grammatical skills, based on PDSS, were not as developed as 4 to 5-year-old full-term children. Gender, in general, and gestational age had no effect on the PDSS scores of preterm children (p>0.05).

Preterm children, regardless of gestational age, are at risk of morphosyntax impairments, which may not be recovered during the normal development. Therefore, grammatical evaluation and treatment seem to be necessary for these children.

Language impairment is a primary characteristic of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, findings of language deficits in these children have been inconclusive, and many researchers believe that in such children the pattern of language profiles is different from normal children. To determine this pattern, comprehension and expression of syntax were examined in 10 Persian speaking children at ages 6-9. Children with autism were compared to normal groups on the basis of their age and language.
Material and In this study, research data were collected of 10 children with autism and 20 normal cases (10 age-matched and 10 language-matched). Gilliam Autism Rating Scale- 2 and the Autism Spectrum Screening Questionnaire were used for diagnosis of children with autism, and test of language development was used to determine their language scores. Afterward, reception of syntactic structures was assessed using the Persian syntax comprehension test, and expression of it was also evaluated using a Persian photographic grammar expression test. Finally, the data were analyzed by Kolmogorov–Smirnov, Mann–Whitney, and Wilcoxon tests.
Comparing the total scores shows that in normal groups, there was a significant difference between receptive and expressive of syntax both in terms of the number of correct tasks and number of correct structures. However, in the study group, such a difference was only seen in the number of correct tasks. Comparison of reception and expression of different structures in all groups showed that there was a significant difference between receptive and expressive tasks of subject relative clause in children with autism and language-matched group. However, in age-matched group, such a difference was not noticed. As to the grammatical relations such as aspect, tense and superlative adjectives, there were no significant differences between receptive and expressive tasks of any groups. Finally, there was a significant difference in terms of using of independent pronouns just in group of children with autism.
Overall, it can be concluded that comparing total scores of difference between reception and expression does not suffice for making a hypothesis that in ASD comprehension of all structures is more difficult than their expression because their performance in different structures of syntax is variant.

Word definitional skills (WDSs) were classified according to the quality of both semantic content and syntactic form. The aim of the present study was to investigate the syntactic development in WDSs in typically developing school- age children. In this cross-sectional and descriptive- analytical study, 150 of typically developing school- age children participated by the multistage sampling method in the second to sixth grade from primary schools in 1, 7 and 17 municipal districts of Tehran. The definition skill was assessed with word definition task. The reliability was assessed by two independent values and the validity was determined by the content. The results were analyzed by the SPSS (22th version) statistical software and with the method of independent- samples T test, univariate analysis of variance and Tukey test. The form analysis revealed that all children use phrase/clause or simple sentence, transitional form and Aristotelian form frequently, but by increasing the age, definitions were developed from simple syntactic structure into Aristotelian form, in fact mean score of the form in word definition was significantly increased by age (p< 0.001). Owing to the findings of this study, the development of word definitional skills in terms of form was developed from phrase/clause or simple sentence and transitional form responses into Aristotelian form. Also WDSs are closely related to academic success and the development of literacy.

The grammar assessment in aphasia has been done by few standard tests, but today these tests cannot precise evaluate the sentence production in agrammatic patients. In this study, we review structures and contents of tests or tasks designed to find more frequent methods for sentence production ability in aphasia patients. We searched the Cochrane library, Medline by PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, and Google Scholar from 1980 to October 1, 2013 and evaluated all of exist tests or tasks included in the articles and systematic reviews. The sentence production has been studied in three methods. It contains the use of sentence production in spontaneous speech, tasks designed and both methods. The quality of studies was assessed using Critical Appraisal Skills Program. The 160 articles were reviewed and 38 articles were studied according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. They were classified into three categories based on assessment methods of sentence production. In 39.5% studies, researchers have used tasks designed, 7.9% articles have applied spontaneous speech and 52.6% articles have used both methods for evaluation production. Inter-rater reliability was between 90% and 100% and intra-rater reliability was between 96% and 98% in studied. Agrammatic aphasia has syntax disorders, especially in sentence production. Most researchers and clinicians used both methods for evaluation production.