SPEECH AND LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY
Year:2014 | Volume:1 | Issue:3|Papers Count:8

Objectives Parkinson’s disease is one of the most common nervous system disorders which may result in articulatory problems and consequently decrease in speech intelligibility. The reduction in the rate and the range of the articulators are main problems observed in patients with Juvenile Parkinson Disease (JPD). Such disorders may cause disturbances in the exact articulation of consonants and vowels. Changes in formant structures, in terms of time and frequency, are suitable tools to present the dynamicity of the articulatory system, especially tongue. Therefore, articulatory movements of patients with JPD can be analyzed and investigated through this way. The Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT) is an intensive behavioral voice treatment which has been designed exclusively for patients with JPD. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of voice treatment on improving articulatory skills and the effect of improving articulatory skills on speech intelligibility in a patient with JPD.Methods and Materials The patient was a 35 year old male, who was suffering from JPD which his speech was declined in intelligibility. An acoustic assessment and speech intelligibility tests before and after the treatment were conducted. Intensive voice therapy program includes 16 one-hour individual sessions, based on the principles of LSVT.Results Post-intervention, a significant increase in the voice intensity loudness, the duration of F2 formant transition and the patient’ s speech intelligibly were observed.Conclusion The effect of intensive voice treatment based on the LSVT principles are beyond the vocal intensity. Patients with JPD may receive benefits in their voice quality, articulation and speech intelligibility.

Objectives Inability in speaking is a barrier to communicate and ultimately lead to distancing from the community.Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) services have been proposed as a mechanism to aid individuals with severe impairments in speech perception and production. The aim of this study was to examine the level of knowledge of speech and language pathologists (SLPs) of AAC services.Methods and Materials In this descriptive cross-sectional study, the knowledge of 25 speech and language pathologists who were working in hospitals and clinics affiliated with the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences were investigated for AAC services. A researcher- made questionnaire was used to examine the knowledge. Content validity of the questionnaire was investigated by Lavshe method. The results were analyzed by the SPSS (16 thversion) statistical software.Results The content validity ratio (CVR) of questionnaire was 76.13. The results showed that 28 percent of the participants had not any knowledge about AAC and 68 percent of them had little knowledge about these services. This result has obtained in situation that 96 percent of SLPs have been faced with clients who had little ability for communication. None of participants utilized high-tech AAC for his/her clients.92 percent of participants keened opportunity for learning AAC.Conclusion The results of this survey showed that the SLPs had limited knowledge of AAC services, so training SLPs in this field is necessary.

Objectives Most of Persian lexical access tests have focused on picture naming and hardly attended to verbal fluency and connected speech. The purpose of this study is to provide a valid and reliable "Persian lexical access assessment package".Methods and Materials In this analytic cross-sectional study, we offered a lexical assessment package consisted of three subtests including picture naming (50 pictures), verbal fluency (Phonologic and semantic), and analysis of connected speech (speech rate, total number of word, number of content word, and number of nouns and verbs). A 9-person expert panel group offered their opinion about content validity. Reliability calculated using Cronbach's Alpha and test-retest.Results Both content validity index and Cronbach's Alpha for "Persian lexical access Test" was achieved 0.78. The correlation coefficient of test-retest for phonological verbal fluency was 0.69 (p-value=0.04), for semantic verbal fluency was 0.73 (p-value=0.017) and for items of connected speech analysis except speech rate was 0.70 (p-value<0.05).Conclusion According to the high reliability and validity index obtained for the "lexical access assessment package", it can be used in clinics. This package is capable to detect word finding problems in three areas including picture naming in visual confrontation, verbal fluency and speech analysis. The "Persian Lexical Access Assessment package" can be used for anomia diagnosis and following the post treatment changes in a variety of naming disorders.

Objectives According to the Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH) abnormalities in brain structures underlying procedural memory, largely explain language deficits in children with specific language impairment (SLI). The PDH assumes that the procedural memory affects the learning of grammar but the lexical knowledge is not affected. This study aims to examine the procedural memory and its relationship with language skills, in particular with grammar, in children with SLI.Methods and Materials In this case-control study, We investigated the performance of 9 children with SLI and 9 typically developing children on a number of language and memory tasks. Children with SLI were chosen from speech therapy clinics in Mashhad. The typically developing children selected randomly among kids in a kindergarten. Tools used in this study included Told-P: 3, Raven's standard progressive matrices, Expressive One-word Picture Vocabulary Test, Renfrew Action Picture Test, sentence completion subtest from the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI), and the Serial Reaction Time task (SRT). To analyze the data, we used the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. The Pearson Correlation Coefficient was also used to measure the dependence between the variables.Results This study provides evidence of abnormal procedural memory functioning in children with SLI based on the PDH; however there is no correlation between grammar deficits and abnormal procedural memory in either the SLI (r-value=-0.52, sig.=0.14) or the control group (r-value=0.73, sig.=0.73).Conclusion The results provide mixed support for the PDH. Thus, additional research is required to substantiate the results observed in this study.

Objectives Cued Speech is a mode of communication for hearing impaired individuals which designed to make the natural oral language accessible to them by the extensive use of lip reading. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of Persian cued speech software on the naming expression abilities of hearing impaired 5-6 years children.Methods and Materials Five hearing impaired students (ranging 5 to 6 years old) with hearing loss were taught with Cued Speech software in 3 month daily, 20 - 25 minutes sessions per day. Newsha, Receptive, and Expressive Speech Tests were used as pre-test, post-test, and follow-up. There was one week period between pre-test, post-test, and follow-up. Line slope analysis on visual probe of the data point graphs were used for examining the results.Results The slope of the changes through baseline, intervention and follow up showed improvement of the noun expression skills in all children.Conclusion The results indicated that Persian Cued Speech software is an efficient tool for improving the naming expression skills (people, animals, fruits, etc) of the hearing impaired children of this research.

Objectives In linguistic studies, the word definition task is used for surveying organization of concepts in the mental lexicon. The aim of this study was to review the literature related to the developmental processing concepts and organization of using word definition task.Methods and Materials Published articles on the subject of the development of word’ s definition in children was surveyed using these keywords word definition, definitional skills, children within the timeframe of 1980- 2014. Databases of Science Direct, Springer, Google Scholar, Elsevier, PubMed, ASHA and related Iranian studies were used. In the word definition task, the children were asked to define words. The answers that be expressed in this task are scored based on content and form.Conclusion By increasing the age and improvement of metalinguistic skills in schools, responses are closer to the Aristotelian definition. By increasing the age, noun definitions are developed from functional and concrete responses into more abstract and the conceptual responses, and also using of superordinate terms is increased. Increased use of super ordinate terms in definitions indicates that by increasing the age, concepts are organized into hierarchies of connections and super ordinates have connection with subordinates.

Objectives A prominent hypothesis with respect to dyslexia is resulted from phonological processing deficits. Nonword repetition (NWR) is one of the best tasks for evaluating phonological processing skills. The aim of this study was to investigate the NWR skill with different length and complexity in dyslexic and normal second grade elementary students in Tehran.Methods and Materials This is a descriptive- analytic, cross sectional, and case- control study. All participants were divided into two groups, 28 dyslexic and 30 normal second grade elementary school students. They were selected by multistage random sampling. All the participants should not have speech and language impairments, certain neurological and psychiatric disorders but they should have normal intelligence and hearing.42 researcher-made nonwords (NW) containing 1, 2, 3 and 4 syllables with different complexity levels were used to evaluate the performance of the subjects on NWR task. Data were analyzed by spss software version 18 and using independent and paired t test, Wilcoxon and Mann Whitney test.Results The results of this study revealed that performance of dyslexic students in each NWR task were lower than normal students and statistically there were significant differences between the two groups (P= 0.000). With increasing the length and complexity of NW, the performance of both groups was decreased. Dyslexic students in complex NW were significantly worse than normal students (P=0.001).Conclusion The poor performance of the dyslexic group in NWR may be related to their specific deficit in phonological processing skills.

Objectives Some evidence is showing that adults who stutter may have a reduced quality of life. Although the quality of life is highly influenced by cultural issues, there is no such a study for the Persian adults who stutter. The aim of the present study is to compare quality of life among individuals who stutter comparing to those who do not.Methods and Materials This descriptive-analytical study involves the use of SF-36 in order to assess the quality of life in 65 adults who stutter (10 female, 55 male; mean age=24.16 years) comparing to 65 age/ gender-matched adults who do not stutter (10 female, 55 male; mean age=24.21 years). Data were analyzed using independent t- test and SPSS 16.Results The Mean and standard deviation scores of physical health, mental health and the quality of life in individuals who stutter were 72.4 (±2.4) and 60.5 (±2.5) and 66.3 (±2.3) respectively. The corresponding figures for those who do not stutter were also 79 (±1.7) and 67.5 (±2.2) and 73.2 (±1.6). Statistical comparisons revealed that mean figures for physical health, mental health, and quality of life’s score in people with stuttering was significantly lower than the others (P<0.05).Conclusion Findings indicates that stuttering does negatively affect the quality of life. Therefore, it seems necessary to address the quality of life in outcome measurement and treatment of stuttering.