Standardization of Pragmatic Subtests of the Montreal Protocol for the Evaluation of Communication (MEC Protocol) for Persian Language

Extensive clinical and experimental observations have shown that damage to the right hemisphere and areas outside the traditional areas of the language in the brain, along with dementia and Alzheimer's disease, can affect the communicational abilities of individuals. Researchers, in the past, had noticed such problems in patients, but due to the lack of appropriate tools, they were not able to accurately assess and describe these disorders. In 2004, Joanette et al. developed a comprehensive tool, the Protocole Montréal d’évaluation de la communication (Protocole MEC), in French to assess such skills. The present study has introduced and standardized the subtests of pragmatics (subtests of metaphor interpretation and speech act interpretation) of the Persian version of this protocol. A total of 150 participants in the age groups of 25-44 years and 45-64 years, and two educational groups of under 12 years and over 12 years of formal education participated in this study. These groupings were based on the relevant studies in other languages. The alert points for these two subtests were determined with the 10-percentile criterion in accordance with the original French version. The results indicated that, in line with research conducted in the Western languages such as English and French, the education variable had a greater effect on the performance of subjects than the age variable in Persian language.