فصلنامه آسیب شناسی گفتار و زبان
سال یکم شماره 2 (زمستان 1392)

Stuttering is a communication disorder with a controversial and multifaceted etiology in the patients` mental and/or motor impairment. These problems cause an unbalancing within the natural flow of speech, which consequences the stutterers` behavioral, cognitive and attitude changes. The main aim of this survey was to investigate the effectiveness of integrated cognitive- speech approaches in alleviating the adults` stutter. This was a quasi-experimental research. We selected conveniently 38 stuttering clients (males=30 and female=8), ages between 18-30 years (M= 24 years), from the Tehran city and its suburb`s speech therapy centers. Subsequently, we divided them into case (n=19) and control (n=19) groups. Case group and control group were participated respectively by integrated approach and fluency shaping approach. We tested the severity of stuttering (SSI-3) by implementing the characteristics of stuttering such as frequency, duration and physical behavior. We also tested their cognitive aspects by applying the Wright and Ayre Stuttering Scale Profile (WASSP) for the measurements of the client`s internal properties of cognition, attitude and feeling. Statistical tests of Kolomogorov-Smirnov and Multivariate were used for data analysis. Outcome showed there is a significant difference between the case and control groups (001/ 0>P) According to our research findings, we found the speech recognition integration and its method may be more effective in therapy of such patients.

Speech intelligibility is an important index of verbal communication skill among a variety of disorders such as hearing impairment. Assessment of such intelligibility holds different important issues. One of the best procedures is to obtain a conversational speech in such cases. The main goal of this study was to examine the possibility of replacing sentence repetition task in aforementioned patients` conversation and assess their intelligibility values. Twenty-six, 4-7 years old sensorineural hearing impaired children with moderate to profound degrees, were selected. Inclusive patients were those who referred to Karaj`s educational and rehabilitation center, during first six months of 2013. They were requested to repeat the sentences expressed by the evaluator, after watching the targeted educational videos. Subjects’ conversational speech qualities were taken by answering the questions in regard to different issues such as birthday parties, class tasks, and travels. The responds of 104 listeners were recorded and divided into four groups: naïve, mother, less and fully experienced expert. The percent of the words which recognized accurately by listeners to their total expressed words were calculated. The data analyzed with paired t-test. The outcome showed, in all listeners, their mean of conversational speech intelligibility was less than their mean of sentence intelligibility (0/001 >p). It may be concluded, there is no evidences of using sentences repetition task can be implied as an alternative measure of conversational speech in hearing impaired intelligibility measurement.

Phonological awareness is a component of language knowledge and there is a significant relationship with literacy. Language experiences are different between monolingual and bilingual individuals. Bilingualism influences on the development of linguistic and nonlinguistic skills. The aim of this study was to test the phonological awareness among monolingual Farsi and bilingual Farsi-Arabic speaking of the first grade students in Ahwaz. Fifty (25 girls, 25 boys) monolingual Farsi speaking and 50 (25 girls, 25 boys) bilingual Farsi-Arabic speaking from the first grade students in the primary schools in the city of Ahwaz were participating. We selected the samples randomly in multi-stages and cross-sectional in the first trimester of 2010 -11. In this survey, we used the Soleimani-Dastjerdi validated and reliable phonological awareness tool. We collected the data, T-Test values used and analyzed via SPSS software. The finding indicated that the differences of mean scores between monolingual and bilingual student in alliteration, rhyming and identifying first phoneme were not significant (p≥0.05); but there were difference of mean scores between two groups in identifying final phoneme, combining of phoneme, naming and deleted final phoneme were significant (p≤0.05). The findings indicated that phonological awareness among monolingual students was better than bilingual students. More extensive surveys are recommended to improve the knowledge about phonological awareness in bilingual children for implementing them more effective programming, education and treatment plans.

Unilateral Vocal Fold Paralysis (UVFP) and vocal fold Polyps lead to some vocal fold asymmetry and consequently, changing the acoustic characteristics. In this study, we aimed reporting these acoustic changes due to the mentioned disorders. Method & Materials: This study was a cross sectional, descriptive and analytical. Subjects were 5 patients with UVFP, 5 with polyps and 5 normal persons who were selected in an easy access mode. Normal subjects in the control group were selected among available people with considerations of their gender and age. For each subject, samples of sustaining vowel of /a/ and /i/ were obtained and then analyzed by the Praat software. The results were analysed statistically by SPSS version 17 via using Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests. In vowel /a/: Harmony to Noise Ratio (HNR) in UVFP (p=0.006) and in polyp subjects (p=0.047) was significantly different with normal group. Noise to Harmony Ratio (NHR) and jitter in UVFP had significant differences (p = 0.006) with normal group. In vowel /i/: Jitter in UVFP (P= 0.006) and in Polyp (P= 0.047) was significantly different with normal data. Also, the jitter was the only variable which had significant differences between two groups of patients (p=0.04). HNR, NHR, Jitter in vowel /a/ and jitter in vowel /i/ seem possibly more reliable for initial assessment and improvement monitoring of the patients.

Hearing impairment does have negative effects on language development, and leads to abnormal speech and cognitive skills formation. This study aimed at examining the effect of reading instruction on mean length of utterances an index of language development in hearing impaired children. In this quasi-experimental study with pre-post test design, 6 hearing impaired children were recruited from educational speech therapy clinics of Babol University of Medical Sciences by convenience sampling method. They entered a whole word reading program twice a week for 6 months. Each session lasted 45 minutes. Mean length of utterance was calculated as per-post test. The data was analyzed by Wilcoxon signed- rank test. The findings revealed an improvement of mean length of utterance which was significant (P=0.028). It seems that reading instruction as a visual language helps improve mean length of utterance in hearing impaired language and might resolve some of the language deficits due to their hearing impairment. In other words reading would be applied as a treatment strategy for improving expressive language of hearing impaired children.

oral apraxia is a common consequent of brain damage which is assessed through two methods of pantomime on command and imitation of gestures. Responding to the verbal command form requires auditory comprehension of the command and then performing the intended gesture, but in the imitation form, the target movement is imitated via direct observation. The present study aimed at investigating the relationship between the scores of verbal command and imitation forms of oral apraxia task in left brain- damaged ischemic stroke patients. In this correlational study, 20 left hemisphere damaged patients due to a single ischemic CVA comprised of 12 males and 8 females (with age range of 35-73 years, mean= 60.68, SD= 11.9) were recruited by convenience sampling. An oral apraxia task with two forms of verbal command and imitation was carried out. As the data was distributed normally, Pearson correlation coefficient was used for data analysis. A significant positive correlation between the scores of verbal command and imitation forms of the task was revealed (rp = 0.671, p = 0.001). Although the scores of verbal command and imitation forms of oral apraxia task correlated significantly, the noteworthy point is that the correlation was not complete. So this seems reasonable that as verbal command and imitation tasks encompass different neural representations, it is necessary to use both forms for the patients and consider the results separately.

Phonological awareness has a close affiliation with reading. A lot of researches have been done on phonological awareness in recent decades. This article has described phonological awareness and its developing, as well as relationships between phonological awareness, reading and dyslexia. Phonological awareness is the explicit awareness about sound segments of a word and the ability to manipulate these segments. Phonological awareness has three levels: awareness of syllables, awareness of inter syllabic units and awareness of phonemes which develop with above mention sequence. Phonological awareness has a close association with some oral language skills such as lexicon. Some people with speech and language impairments such as specific language impairment and speech sound disorder have phonological awareness deficits. In alphabetic languages, phonological awareness has a close and reciprocal relationship with reading, and people who have deficit in phonological awareness cannot read through phonic course. Phonological awareness deficit is one of the most important impairments of dyslexic children. Phonological awareness instruction is recommended to be a part of the educational program of the skilled reader and dyslexic children. In spite of several studies have been made on the phonological awareness in Iran, still we need more studies about different fields of the phonological awareness regarding different levels of phonological awareness and its development. Also there are needs of designing appropriate interventions to improve such phonological awareness in Farsi language.