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Objective: This research is designed to study palatographic specification of lingual- palatal consonants in Persian language. Since there is not any research about the lingua-palatal contacts in Persian language, this research is designed to determine these "normal" contact patterns and variability of Persian consonant production.
Materials and Methods: In this study 16 consonants have been studied. Subjects were 4 normal adults. Each person repeated every consonant 10 times in (CVCV) syllable with vowel /a/. Frame of maximum contact for each consonant was determined. Individual and overall representative frames obtained from those frames.
Results: There are different patterns of variability between Persian consonants.
Consonants /n/, /ſ/, and /l/ display more variable articulation and stops and affricates display less variable articulation than others.
Conclusion: Persian consonants have different contact patterns. These findings are in accordance with previous studies in other languages.

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Background and Aim: Human’s voice is observable and measurable like his other behaviours. Investigations have shown that characteristics of voice differ in males and females and possibly in different languages. Clinically, knowing natural voice characteristics is helpful for distinguishing voice pathologies. So the purpose of this study was to measure and compare the fundamental frequency human voice.

Materials and Methods: subjects were young males and females of Iranian Fars, Turk and Kurd races. First the subjects were asked to read some Persian sentences , then their voice samples were analysed by Dr.Speech software.

Results: Fundamental frequency mean is 168±46 Hz and 120±48 Hz for females and males , respectively , which shows significant difference. There is no significant difference between fundamental frequency mean of different races.

Conclusion: There is significant difference between fundamental frequency of males and females , but this difference is not attributable to their mother tongue. Key words: voice, fundamental frequency, Iranian, Fars , Turk , Kurd.

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Background and Aim: Objective measurement is general and acoustic measurements in particular have become a substantial aspect of stuttering assessment during the last few decades. Measurements do not replace the perceptual judgment, but they allow a more precise diagnosis, provide more evidence for therapeutic interventions, and are useful as feedback for patients in therapy. The purpose of this investigation was to compare some adult male stutterers&apos and nonstutterers&apos acoustic features.
Materials and Methods: Adult male stutterers and nonstutterers participated this case-control  study. Their fluent reading of 20 sentences in Farsi, prolongation of  vowels /a/ and /i/, and rhythmic counting from 1 to 20 were analyed with Dr. Speech software.
Results: There were no significant differences between two groups in fundamental frequency (f₀) and standard deviation of f₀ in three speech samples (vowels /a/ and /i/, reading 20 sentences, and rhythmic counting from 1 to 20). No significant difference were between two groups for jitter and shimmer.
Conclusion: Non significant differences between two groups are somewhat due to investigation of this parameters in fluent speech of stutterers  and nonstutterers.

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Background and Aim: Nowadays, auditory perception is not a complete method to assess vowels quality and we need to use more objective instruments.In this study we want to determine and compare the persian vowels formants in normal and hearing Impaired students in 7ـ9 year old children of Isfahan.
Materials and Methods: This cross sectional study was performed on 64 normal and hearing impaired students. Background information was by interview and then, vowel production test was performed. First three formants of each vowel were obtained and recorded by speech studio soft ware and Dr. Speech device Data were compared between groups.
Results: Mean F₁ and F₂, and F₂/F₁ and F₃/F₁ ratio of Persian vowels between these three studied groups were different significantly. Mean F₃ of /o/, /e/ and /a/ in all groups was different significantly. Although we could not find such a significant differences for /u/, /i/ and /æ/ between these groups(p<0.05).
Conclusion: The most important difference between normal and hearing impaired children is their vowel Space, and we found that, the more sever the hearing impairment is, the closer vowel space will be seen. The hearing impaired children rely mostly on their proprioceptive sense because of their hearing deficiency and it causes less movement of the tongue, so they usually substitute vowels which have similar F₁ and F₂.

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Background and Aim: For better using of electropalatography in assessment and treatment procedures it is important to know normal tongue to palate contact patterns. Several factors can change consonant&aposs articulatory patterns. One of them is voicing. In addition to determine amount of spacial indices of studied consonants, this research aimed to study tongue behavior related to change in voicing.
Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive analytic study. Consonant linguapalatal contacts were studied using reading electropalatography by recording 4 normal Persian speaking adults (aged between 21-25) repeating CVCV syllables (C=/s,z,t,d/, V=/a/) ten times. Contact patterns were examined for total number of electrodes contacted and other spatial indices. Comparisons were made across voicing contrast.
Results: In this study amount of spacial indices of studied consonants determined. It&aposs found that there was not significant difference between voiced and voiceless cognate according to number of contact and other special indices.
Conclusion: The findings of this study are in according with previous studies in other languages about the effect of voicing upon linguapalatal contact patterns. Difference in voicing does not make clear change in spacial indices related to tongue contact pattern. Compared to other parts, Tip of the tongue seem to be more sensitive for change in voicing and oral air pressure.

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Background and Aim: Reflux laryngitis is extremely common among patients with voice disorder. Medical therapy approaches are not efficient enough. The main goal of this study is to assess the acoustic and laryngeal characteristics of patients with dysphonia before and after medical or voice therapy, and to evaluate the effectiveness of each.
Methods: In this retrospective study, 16 reflux laryngitis patients were assessed. Five received complete voice therapy, tow ceased voice therapy and nine received medication. Perceptual voice evaluation was performed by a speech-language pathologist, the severity of voice problem was calculated, based on the affected acoustic and laryngeal characteristics pre- and post-treatment.
Results: Post-treatment evaluation in patients who received complete voice therapy indicates 80 percent improvement in the severity of disorder and 100 percent improvement in the perceptual voice evaluation. After medical therapy, we observed that voice disorder and perceptual voice evaluation are improved 44 and 66 percent respectively. The improvement was statistically significant in both treatment approaches: complete voice therapy (P=0.039) and medical therapy (p=0.017).
Conclusion: In patients with reflux laryngitis, most acoustic and laryngeal characteristics were normal and satisfying after the treatment. It can be concluded that the proficiency of voice therapy in improving the acoustic and laryngeal characteristics is comparable to medical therapy.

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Background and Aim: The voice of human being changes during lifetime with different patterns in males and females. In addition to assessment of changes due to aging, some studies examined the voice changes among various languages and ethnical groups. This study is performed to evaluate the fundamental frequency changes in normal 9-50 year-old Persian (Farsi) speaking individuals.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 320 voice samples in normal voiceless environment were recorded. The mean of fundamental frequency of vowels and counting is measured by Dr Speech software (real analysis program). Data analysis was performed by MANOVA test and the profiles of their changes were plotted.
Results: The profile of mean of fundamental frequency changes was different in males and females. The mean of fundamental frequency was equal in both genders until 13 years old and the samples of voice had low pitch (Mean: higher than 200 Hz). MFF after 13 years old significantly decreased in males specially in vowels (p<0.001). The changes in vowels and counting were similar. The mean of fundamental frequency in both genders, between 20-40 years old had  relative constancy.
Conclusion: The mean of fundamental frequency changes of vowels and counting in females and males result from diverse dimensions of larynx and other anatomical differences. Significant changes of mean of fundamental frequency in both genders after 13 years old result from puberty in males. The proportional consistence of mean of fundamental frequency between 20-40 years old is probably due to the uniformity of body in this age range.

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Background and Aim: Speech intelligibility is defined as a measure of effectiveness of understanding speech. It has many applications such as nomination of speech disorder intensity. Different methods and speech tasks have been designed for assessment of speech intelligibility amongst which word identification tasks have high validity. This study aimed to provide a test to measure speech intelligibility among children aged 3 to 5 years old.
Methods: Many words were collected and content validity was assessed by 9 speech-language pathologists and 1 linguist. Thirty four words with a content validity above 70% were chosen as the test words and the speech-language pathologists collected suitable pictures for the words. One hundred boys and girls aged 3 to 5 years participated in the study. Inter-rater reliability was administered to assess the test reliability.
Results: An interclass correlation coefficient of 0.85 and spearman correlation coefficient of 0.81 was obtained for the speech intelligibility test.
Conclusion: Speech intelligibility test has appropriate validity and reliability and is suitable for assessment of intelligibility in 3 to 5 years old children.

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Background and Aim: Formant structure and vowel space are the most important acoustic characteristics of speech sounds. The purpose of this study was to determine formant frequency and vowel space in six Persian vowels.
Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive-analytic study was performed on 60 Persian students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (30 males, 30 females) with their age ranging from 18 to 24 years. The subject articulated six Persian vowels in isolation and data was recorded by real-analyzer software. Then, the first three formant frequency of each vowel was determined for each subject. Vowel formant frequency averages were measured separately for each vowel and each gender. Vowel space was plotted. The difference between F0 in two groups was compared by Leven and independent sample t tests.
Results: Maximum and minimum values of F0 in both group was related to /æ/ and /a/ (135 Hz in males and 239 Hz in females) and /i/ (146 Hz in males and 239 Hz in females). Besides, F0 in females was significantly higher than males (p<0.001). Maximum and minimum values of F1 were related to /æ/ and /i/. Furthermore, maximum and minimum values of F2 were related to /i/ and /u/. Maximum and minimum values of F3 were related to /i/ and /u/.
Conclusion: The lowest vowels were /æ/ and /a/ and the highest was /i/. The frontest was /i/ and the backest was /u/. the spreadest vowel was /i/ and the roundest was /u/.

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Background and Aim: Voice disorders assess with the help of laboratory equipments and perceptual evaluation. Voice samples involve vowel prolongation, text-reading or conversational speech. In Iran, Rainbow text and Grandfather text, were developed for assessing voice.
Methods: This study was cross-sectional and descriptive-analytical. Mean and fundamental frequency variations range in 120 normal males and females aging from 20-59 years old were studied. Voice samples of reading both texts were gathered and compared.
Results: Mean fundamental frequency in males in Grandfather text was 137.93 with SD 1.2 and in Rainbow text was 135.09 with SD 1.1 (p>0.05), in females Grandfather and Rainbow texts were 206.07 with SD 0.9 and 204.23 with SD 2.1, respectively (p>0.05). Fundamental frequency variations range in Grandfather text in males was 88.10 with SD 0.8 and in females was 116.77 with SD 1.3 and in Rainbow text in males was 90.92 with SD 1.1, in females was 116.08 with SD 1.2 (p>0.05). Mean fundamental frequency of males in each text didn&apost show significant difference in age groups and just in 50-59 age group of the female population showed significant difference. Fundamental frequency variations range didn&apost show significant difference in males and females in both texts.
Conclusion: These two texts were the same in measurement of average and fundamental frequency variations range in adults. Significant difference showed between 50-59 age group of the female population and other groups.

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Background and Aim: prosody is a very important factor in communication and includes such parameters as: duration, intonation, pitch, stress, rhythm etc. Intonation is the pitch variation in one sentence. Duration is the time taken to utter a voice. The aim of the present study was to evaluate some parameters of prosody such as duration and intonation curve in interrogative sentences among normal Farsi speaking adults in order to determine the characteristics of this aspect of language with an emphasis on laboratory testing.
Methods: This study was performed as a cross-sectional one. The participants included 134 male and female Farsi speaking individuals aging between 18-30 years. In this study two interrogative sentences with open and closed answers were used. The voice samples were analyzed by Dr.speech -real analysis software. Data analysis incorporated unilateral analysis of variance and an intonation curve was drawn for each sentence.
Results: The parameter of duration among men and women was significantly different (p≤0.001). Duration in open questions was significantly longer than yes/no questions (p≤0.001). The intonation curve of the two groups were similar.
Conclusion: Men and women use duration changes, for making difference in prosody. On the whole, duration among women is longer than men. In open questions, the duration of sentences is mostly due to the question word. The intonation curve in open questions has more amplitude. Women show much more changes in basic frequency for transferring interrogative state in their expressions.

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Background and Aim : Nasalization of a vowel refers to the addition of nasal resonance to the vocal tract transfer function. Also, vowel nasalization occurs because of coarticulation. Coupling of the nasal resonating space to the oropharyngeal cavity alters the vocal tract formants in complex ways. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of nasalization on /a/ vowel formants in before and after nasal consonant.

Methods: In current cross-sectional study, voice samples of 60 normal children ranging the age of four-nine years were investigated. Participants were asked to repeat / ʔ ama/ three times and vowel /a/ after presentation of an auditory model. Then, obtained samples were analyzed using Praat 5.3.13 . Average of F₀, F₁, F₂ and F₃ were calculated for /a/ comes before and after /m/ in production of / ʔ ama/ over three trials.

Results: There were statistically significant differences of F₁, F₂ and F₃ between / a/ which proceeds nasal consonant and /a/ follows nasal consonant , the before nasal consonant /a/ versus single /a/ and the after nasal consonant /a/ versus single /a/ (p=0.001 for all).

Conclusion : F₁, F₂ and F₃ in /a/ before nasal consonant affected by anticipatory nasal coarticulation and in /a/ after nasal consonant affected by carry-over nasal coarticulation . This study showed nasal coarticulation and nasalization result in decreasing F₁, F₂ and F₃ in /a/ vowel.

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Backgrand and Aim: The measurement of speech intelligibility refer to determining the measure of speech intelligibility in communication. The speech intelligibility is used for decision-making in intervention, the determination of intervention goals, and the measurement of intervention outcomes. This study aimed to investigate the speech intelligibility among the children aged 36 to 60 months.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 360 healthy children (180 girls and 180 boys) were chosen among children of kindergardens in Khorramabad city, Iran. Speech sample of subjects was collected by calling pictures of Hydari et al 2010, speech intelligibility measurement test (2010). The voices of the subjects were tape-recorded and speech intelligibility of children was studied within 12 age-groups arranged by two months.

Results: The minimum speech intelligibility was concerned to 36 and 37 months old and the maximum was concerned to 58 and 59 months old. There was a significant differences among age-group 36 and 37 months old with 44 and 45 months old and above, age-group 38 and 39 months old with 55 and 54 months old and above, and age-group 40 and 41 months old with 58 and 59 months old (p<0.05 for all). There was no significant difference among other age groups. There was no significant difference between boys and girls.

Conclusion: Speech intelligibility has the highest growth during the age of 36 to 46 months and it had lowest growth during the age of 46 months and elder range.

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Background and Aim: Studies have found that deaf individuals have higher rates of psychiatric disorders, such as behavioral problems, than those who can hear. The aim of this review was to provide a summary of the literature on behavioral problems, with specific reference to deaf individuals. The objectives of the review were to establish the prevalence of behavioral problems in deaf populations describe the risk factor for behavioral problems in deaf populations and describe approaches to intervention and behavioral problems prevention that have been used in deaf populations.

Recent Findings: A review of articles published between 1991 and 2013 showed that the prevalence of behavioral problems in deaf people is higher than that of hearing people. Risk factors for behavioral problems in deaf populations include language impairments, communication problems, the role of parents, and the community’s beliefs and attitudes regarding the issue.

Conclusion: Given the high prevalence of behavioral problems in deaf people, the effectiveness of prevention strategies should be examined. Consequently, it would be advantageous to increase the availability of specialist mental health services, promote deaf awareness including their abilities, promote awareness and skills development among teachers, staff, and specialists and implement behavior change programs.