نشریه اختلالات ارتباطی گفتار و زبان
سال دوم شماره 2 (پاییز و زمستان 1392)

Acquired apraxia of speech (AOS) has been shown to be responsive to behavioral intervention. Although numerous treatments for AOS have been developed، most have received limited study. One treatment for AOS، Sound Production Treatment (SPT)، has been shown to facilitate improved sound production in trained and untrained sounds. Sound Production Treatment has undergone more systematic examination than other AOS treatments and documented to improve consonant production. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the acquisition، response generalization، and maintenance effects of SPT on a speaker with severe AOS. A single-participant، multiple baseline design across behaviors was employed to examine the effects of treatment on production of six consonants in monosyllabic words. Treatment was applied sequentially to three sets of items with two consonants targeted in each set. A third phase of treatment entailed training of all target sounds. Follow-up probing was conducted at four and six weeks post-treatment. Improved productions were observed for all trained items، and response generalization to untrained exemplars of trained items was positive. Maintenance effects were strong at four and six weeks post-treatment. Results for this speaker with severe AOS in the Persian language were similar to those previously reported for SPT in the English language. Maintenance of participant performance at four- and six-week post-treatment follow-ups demonstrated the effectiveness of treatment in severe AOS. Furthermore، these findings suggested that follow-up probing may need to be conducted over a considerably longer period of time than has previously been reported in the literature.

Recent studies have demonstrated that in addition to motor deficits، amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients suffer from cognitive and language impairments. One of most striking and consistent cognitive dysfunctions in these patients is the lack of verbal fluency. Awareness of patients’ cognitive profiles is needed to design treatment plans. Semantic fluency performance is affected by the language; therefore، we aimed to determine semantic fluency performance of Persian speakers with ALS. Fifteen ALS patients were studied using the semantic fluency test compared to fifteen normal individuals. Data analysis was performed with SPSS16. Mean scores of semantic subcategories including naming، switching، and clustering were 24. 46، 12. 66، and 1. 00 for the patient group and 32، 15. 33، and 1. 35 for the control group، respectively. Differences between unpaired means for total naming (P= 0. 016) and switching (P= 0. 05) were statistically significant، while the difference between the groups on the clustering section was not significant. Patients with ALS had lexical problems such as initiating and continuing searches، while they accessed semantic clusters as well as normal individuals.

Autism is a developmental disorder that appears in the first 3 years of life، and affects the brain''s normal development of social and communication skills. Parents usually notice signs in the first two years of their child''s life. The signs usually develop gradually، but some autistic children first develop more normally and then regress. Behavior analysis focuses on the principles that explain how learning takes place. Positive reinforcement is one such principle. When a behavior is followed by some sort of reward، the behavior is more likely to be repeated. Through decades of research، the field of behavior analysis has developed many techniques for increasing useful behaviors and reducing those that may cause harm or interfere with learning. Applied behavior analysis (ABA) is the use of these techniques and principles to bring about meaningful and positive change in behavior. An autistic culture has developed، with some individuals seeking a cure and others believing autism should be accepted as a difference and not treated as a disorder.

The effect of vestibular stimulation on auditory attention in Children aged 7 to 12 years with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was studied by Integrated Visual and Auditory Continuous Performance Test (IVA-PLUS-CPT; The common practice in occupational therapy clinics). Children with ADHD was diagnosed by a psychiatrist based on the criteria of diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-IV-TR; Fourth edition، text revision). After obtaining parental permission، they were enrolled and randomly matched for age and divided into two groups (the intervention and control group). At first، IVA-PLUS-CPT was done as a pre-test. Then، the intervention group underwent vestibular stimulation during the therapy sessions twice a week for 5 weeks. At the end، all participants were tested again by IVA–PLUS-CPT (post-test). Pre- and post-test changes were measured and compared by performing a t-test between the two groups. Results showed a significant difference for the mean difference leading to improving auditory attention. It can be concluded vestibular stimulation in the treatment of children with ADHD is useful and it is offered as an exertion therapeutic approach with other techniques.

Language plays an important role in human life. A subset of language is literacy، which includes reading and writing. Reading and writing deficits can cause problems for individuals in the social fields، especially in their abilities to achieve high educational levels. In this study، we compared reading and writing difficulties for hearing- impaired and dyslexic groups. Thirty-one dyslexic and 23 hearing-impaired subjects participated in this study. The characteristics of the hearing- impaired students’ reading and writing were measured and compared with those of the dyslexic ones. The Persian reading and writing tests designed for school-aged students in Tehran city in 2000 was used. Data were analyzed by IBM SPSS (version 18). Student in both groups functioned similarly with regard to phonological awareness except in the blending task، in which performance differences were observed solely for the third grade students. Spelling analyses indicated auditory consonant substitutions and phoneme deletions were the most frequent errors for the hearing- impaired and dyslexic students، respectively. By analyzing the spelling errors pattern، it was conclude that auditory errors were most common in student with hearing impairments while phonic errors were relatively common among dyslexic group. Furthermore، writing skills developed later in children in both groups than in normal children.

The purpose of this study was to provide information about the advantages، disadvantages، and effectiveness of medical practices on patients with unilateral vocal-fold paralysis with the goal of allowing earlier، more effective، and less costly treatments than are presently available. Research’s information was collected from valid data banks. In general، there are two modes of therapy whose names along with details of the study are presented in study part. In the majority of patients improving larynx muscles and correcting way of speaking، can make voice quality better and surgery is not necessary. It seems that Teflon injection is more suitable for treating paralysis in comparison with collagen injection. Although، one of the disadvantages of injection methods is that covering membrane of vocal folds often exaggerate and vocal folds become thicker. So، it seems that postponing non-behavioral treatment approaches as well as ultrasound therapy can have better results on improving paralysis patients.