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Background and Aim: Vocal cord nodule is one of the voice disorders causes hoarseness and breathy voice. Voice therapy is one of the treatment approaches. We aimed to find out the effects of voice therapy on vocal acoustic characteristics in these patients.
Methods: In this case series, five women with vocal nodule (14 to 45-year-old) participated in a 9-week voice therapy program developed by Boone. Vocal hygiene and voice practices were measured every day using a questionnaire. Moreover, structure and movements of vocal folds were examined using videolaryngostroboscope by a laryngologist before and after voice therapy to evaluate the effectiveness of program. For collecting voice samples we used sustained /æ/ in comfortable loudness for all patients and data were analyzed using Speech Studio.
Results: After voice therapy, fundamental frequency in four of five subjects were decreased but it was not significant (p=0.225). However, jitter in all of five subjects was significantly decreased (p=0.043). After voice therapy, shimmer in three of five subjects were decreased that was not significant (p=0.345).
Conclusion: Voice therapy can be used for the remedy of acoustic vocal characteristics and elimination or contraction of vocal cord nodule.

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Background and Aim: Pragmatics refers to speech interactions and the social aspect of communication in language contexts. Due to the crucial role of hearing in language skill development, hearing-impaired children have problems with all aspects of language, including pragmatics. These skills are crucial in children's daily life. There is a lack of Persian studies on hearing-impaired children. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to describe some pragmatic skills of hearing and hearing-impaired children.
Methods: This descriptive case study was conducted on five hearing-impaired and two normal-hearing 6 year old children. Their pragmatic language skills were studied by the Persian story retelling test. in a quiet room. The children's re-told story was recorded, analyzed, and scored.
Results: There was no difference between the scores of hearing and severe hearing-impaired children. However, children with severe hearing loss and cochlear implant, and hearing children were different in maintaining the subject and sequence of events. Children with profound hearing loss and hearing aid, and hearing children had a significant difference in all aspects except main information. All subjects used conjunctions correctly.
Conclusion: The pragmatic skills of hearing-impaired children are weaker than hearing children. There are also differences between hearing-impaired children's abilities. This difference in pragmatic skills shows the difference in amount of hearing loss, kind of assistive device, effective use of remaining hearing, onset and quality of aural rehabilitation program, and other factors. Therefore, a research with a greater sample size is necessary to explain these differences.

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Background and Aim: Pragmatic impairment is the main cause of communication difficulties in hearing-impaired children and teaching pragmatic skills in these children is too challenging for clinicians. Thus, creating written and formalized therapy plans can be useful for rehabilitation team, clients and therapists.

Methods: A therapy-plan was designed and content validity of it was determined. A single case subject design (a multiple baselines research design) was used to determine the efficacy of the therapy plan to improve four domains of pragmatic in five hearing-impaired children (5 to 8 years). The experiment was divided into three phases including baseline, treatment and follow-up. Treatment phase consisted of 16 sessions and subjects were enrolled in the phase in stair way. The data were analyzed with effect size and visual analysis.

Results: According to expert's opinions, the therapy plan of pragmatic skills was valid. Visual analysis of diagrams showed that all subjects progressed in turn-taking, topic maintenance and response to request for clarification domains and the effect sizes (ES) were high (ES>0.8). Also, there were medium effect sizes (0.8≥ES≥0.2) in certain subjects. In request for clarification domain, some of subjects did not show desired improvement by visual analysis and effect sizes were medium. But, others showed improvement and had high effect sizes.

Conclusion: The therapy plan of pragmatic skills can improve pragmatic skills of moderate-to-severe hearing-impaired children.