Background and Aim: Premature birth and low birth weight are regarded as two risk factors for impaired language development. Hence, information about primary period of language development in these children is important for early detection of children&aposs needs during their language development period. The goal of this study was to determine the expressive lexicon size in 18 to 36 month-old premature children with low birth weight and to compare them with their full-term peers.
Methods: In this prospective historical survey, using form II of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI), expressive lexicon size of 42 premature children with low birth weight who were 18 to 36 month- old and 42 full-term peers in three age groups with six month-intervals is evaluated. Forms were completed individually by mothers of children.
Results: Data analysis showed that the difference in expressive lexicon between the two groups was significant (p=0.025). Nonetheless, in each group the difference in expressive lexicon size between the three age groups was not significant.
Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that expressive lexicon size in premature children with low birth weight was smaller than their full-term matches and the development of lexicon size is delayed in these children. However, by increasing age, these children follow a similar development pattern in terms of lexicon size and eventually catch up with their full term counterparts. This study shows the importance of early intervention to expedite this compensatory mechanism in these children.

Background and Aim: Developing appropriate curriculum for the education of deaf children depends on identifying the needs of this group. We aimed to examine educational rehabilitating needs of hearing-impaired children from the point of view of their parents.

Methods: In this descriptive survey study, data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire completed by 64 parents of deaf children.

Results: Parents expressed that fitness of training with the students in school, willingness to participate in the program, and the use of a uditory-verbal therapy as a good way were the main notification preferences to families of hearing-impaired children, exceptional centers, and advertisements. They emphesied that lack of appropriate facilities, children's pertinacity, and their lack of cooperation prevented the implementation of training programs and curriculum in educational centers and home. Good verbal communication and speech was as the parents' first priority expectation of their child at the end of course. There was a significant difference between parents' opinions about the educational needs and rehabilitation (p<0.05). No significant difference was seen between the parents' suggestions about educational problems of hearing-impaired children (p>0.05). Also, there was no significantly association between the gender of child or the educational level of parents with the parents' view.

Conclusion: It seems that parents should be supported by training workshops and consulting. Also, most of the children in this study were trained auditory-verbally and the results do not mean that other educational and rehabilitation methods have not the discussed characteristics.

Background and Aim: Speech and language pathologists (SLP) often refer to phonological data as part of their assessment protocols in evaluating the communication skills of children. The aim of this study was to develop the Persian version of the phonological test in evaluating and diagnosing communication skills in Persian speaking children and to evaluate its validity and reliability.

Methods: The Persian phonological test (PPT) was conducted on 387 monolingual Persian speaking boys and girls (3-6 years of age) who were selected from 12 nurseries in the northwest region of Tehran. Content validity ratio (CVR) and content validity index (CVI) were assessed by speechtherapists and linguists. Correlation between speech and language pathologists experts' opinions and Persian phonological test results in children with and without phonological disorders was evaluated to investigate the Persian phonological test validity. In addition, the Persian phonological test test-retest reliability was investigated.

Results: Both content validity ratio and content validity index were found to be acceptable (CVR≥94.71 and CVI=97.35). The PPT validity was confirmed by finding a good correlation between s peech and language pathologists experts' opinions and Persian phonological test results ( r _Kappa =0.73 and r _Spearman =0.76). The percent of agreement between transcription and analyzing error patterns in test-retest (ranging from 86.27%-100%) and score-rescore (ranging from 94.28%-100%) showed that Persian phonological test had a very high reliability.

Conclusion: The results of this study show that the Persian phonological test seems to be a suitable tool in evaluating phonological skills of Persian speaking children in clinical settings and research projects.