Background and Aim: phonological awareness skill is an integrated ability that is manifested in 4 skills including syllable, rhyme, and phoneme awareness and alliteration. The aim of the present study is to explore development of syllabic elision skill as an aspect of syllabic awareness.

Methods: It was a descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study. Thirty normal Persian-speaking children, 15 girls and 15 boys, were randomly selected throughout Tehran kindergartens. The participants were monolingual. Children should eliminate a syllable from any word presented, and to state the remaining section of the word. The responses were analyzed using SPSS software.

Results: Ability of 5 to 6 year-old children in eliminating a syllable in two syllabic words was significantly higher than those of three and four syllabic words and syllabic elision of three and four syllable words was significantly different (p=0.000). Two, three and four syllabic task correlations were statistically significant and the correlation between syllabic elision ability and the syllabic construct and the positioning of elision syllable was significant (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Syllabic elision skill blossoms in 5 to 6 year-old Persian-speaking children. The maximum ability of syllabic elision evolves after phonological recoding and after learning reading and writing skills. Syllabic elision ability is also influenced by the syllabic construct and the positioning of elision syllable.

Background and Aim: The correlation of stuttering and different linguistic factors is assessed in many studies. The obtained results can pave the way to reach a better understanding of stuttering, as well as finding more appropriate treatments. This study investigates the effect of utterance length on speech dysfluency comparing stuttering Persian(Farsi) -speaking children and nonstuttering ones.
Methods: Ten stuttering and ten nonstuttering Persian-speaking children between 4 and 6 years of age, matched by age and gender where included in this cross-sectional study. All individuals were investigated by ten sets of simple and complex sentences. Morphemes were added one by one to sentences in each set in order to assess the impact of utterance length on dysfluency. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software.
Results: In practicing ten sets of sentences, the speech dysfluency shows significant enhance with increase of utterance length in both stuttering and nonstuttering children (p=0.001). Furthermore, while comparing two groups of simple and complex sentences, significant increase of speech dysfluency was observed by length enhance of utterance, in both stuttering and nonstuttering children (p<0.05). The comparison of stuttering and nonstuttering children showed significant difference between the two groups as well (p=0.001).
Conclusions: The results of this study show that increase in utterance length in both simple and complex sentences lead to increase in dysfluency in stuttering and nonstuttering children. Stuttering children indicated more dysfluency than nonstuttering ones.

Background and Aim: Rhyme awareness is an important criterion for speech, language and writing processing. In Iran, there is no auditory tasks of rhyme awareness available for assessment of 5-6 year-old Persian-speaking children. The aim of this study was to develop and to evaluate Persian rhyme awareness tasks in 5-6 year-old Persian-speaking children.
Methods: A hundred normal 5-6 year-old Persian-speaking children (50 girls and 50 boys) were randomly selected. The two rhyme awareness tasks of this study were rhyme detection and rhyme production. The validity and reliability of these tasks were studied by content validity index, intraclass correlation coefficient, and standard error of measurement. The correlation between tasks was studied by Pearson correlation and the mean scores of two sections were compared by easiness level method. The comparison of mean scores of girls and boys were evaluated by independent t-test.
Results: The results showed that the proposed tasks had appropriate validity and reliability. The ability of children in production section was significantly more than in detection section. The correlation of each of two sections with total tasks was significant (p<0.05). In addition, the mean scores of girls and boys were not statistically different (p>0.05).
Conclusions: The proposed tasks are appropriate for assessment of rhyme awareness skills with appropriate validity and reliability in both genders. Two Sections of the tasks had significant correlations and influence on together. The abilities of girls and boys were the same.

Background and Aim: valid identification, prevention, and treatment of language disorders are a high priority for the speech and language professionals. One method for studying language development is sentence repetition that is faster to implement and analysis than other procedures. The aim of this project was constructing sentence repetition test as a quick measure of grammatical potency in 2.5 to 4 year old children.
Methods: Sentences appropriate for 2.5 to 4 year old children were selected during several stages by speech and language pathologist and linguists. The validity of sentences was assessed by professional masters in this theme. Subsequently, 41 sentences including those with 80% high validity were selected as the test sentences. Appropriate pictures were also provided with sentences. The test was administrated to 72 children in 3 groups (2.5-3, 3-3.5, and 3.5-4 year olds, gender matched). The reliability was administered with a test-retest design across a 2 weeks interval.
Results: Content validity Index for this test was 80%. "Test-retest reliability" was used for reliability of this test. The Interclass correlation coefficient for this test was 0.95 and standard error measurement was 7.45. The average of scores for sentence repetition, between groups was significant (p<0.001, p<0.001, p= 0.014).
Conclusion: This sentence repetition test has the appropriate validity and reliability as well as the capability of proper and quick assessment (screening) of grammatical development in 2.5 to 4 year old Persian speaking children.

Background and Aim: Phonological working memory is an important factor in speech and language development and the treatment of related disorders. Assessment of this kind of memory is based on non word repetition. The aim of this study was providing a non word repetition test to examine the capacity of phonological working memory and determining its validity and reliability.
Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. Initially 60 words were selected based on common Persian syllable structures. Then non words were created by changing one or two phonemes in each of the words. Words and non words were assessed by experts for the content validity and 25 non words were selected. 16 boys and 14 girls aged 4 years to 4 years and eleven months were selected by non-probability sampling from the childcares centers in regions 2 and 6 of Tehran. The test was performed twice by a single examiner to evaluate the reliability of test. Children non word repetition scores were determined and correlation analysis was conducted using the Pearson&aposs correlation coefficient.
Results: Our results show that a high coefficient correlation between different performances 0.76 (p<0.001).
Conclusion: These findings show that non word repetition test has high validity and reliability.

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: The communication process includes both verbal and nonverbal elements. Nonverbal behavior or body language includes facial expression, eye contact, posture and prosody. Prosody conveys semantic or affective information to a listener. Nonetheless, so far in Iran no report on assessment of speech prosody comprehension in patients has ever been published. The aim of this study was to measure the validity and reliability of the prosody comprehension test specifically designed for the Persian language and culture.
Methods: This study is a type of test development. 73 sentences were orated by 22 professional vocalists in eight different prosodies. A total of 6582 voices were prepared which were listened by 200, 18-30 year-old students and a voice specialist. Having the content validity calculated for all voices, 1473 voices were found to be unanimously agreed upon by all participants in terms of emotional status which were analyzed by a voice specialist. Eventually, 169 voices were selected for developing the prosody comprehension test including the following four subtests: none motional prosody discrimination, emotional discrimination, naming of prosody and naming conflicts. Reliability of the test was determined by performing the test on 32, 18-60 year-old normal people.
Results: The designed test of comprehension prosody had 100% content validity ratio and 94% reliability and the correlation of test of prosody was 89% (p=0.001).
Conclusion: This test in Persian language has appropriate validity and reliability and is appropriate for assessment of prosody comprehension.