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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.

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Background and Aim: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurological disorder that involves central nervous system. Studies have showed that multiple sclerosis affects behavioral central auditory tests, such as masking release or masking level difference (MLD). The purpose of this study is to compare the masking level difference between multiple sclerosis patients and normal subjects.
Methods: This cross sectional and non-interventional study was conducted on 32 multiple sclerosis patients aged between 20-50 years and 32 controls matched for age and gender in Faculty of Rehabilitation, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. masking level difference test was performed on each subject.
Results: The mean masking level difference in the two groups was significantly different (p<0.01) however, gender did not prove to play a role in this difference.
Conclusion: As part of the multiple sclerosis diagnosis panel, masking level difference test is an efficient modality for evaluation of hearing impairment and monitoring of rehabilitation progress.

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Background and Aim: Valid identification, prevention, and treatment of language disorders have a high priority for the clinicians. Story retelling is a method for studying language development which is faster than other procedures in implementing and analyzing, and has a reliable scoring system. The aim of this project is to construct story retelling test for assessing language structure in 6-7 year old, Persian children.
Methods: An appropriate story for 6-7 year old children was written by the help of a speech pathologist, a linguist, and a novelist. The validity of the constructed story was checked by 14 experts. Then related pictures were design and their validity was examined. The test was conducted on 72 children (36 girls, 36 boys) of 6-7 years. The reliability was administered with a test-retest design with a two week interval. The reliability of the scoring system was evaluated with inter-rater method.
Results: Content validity index for this test was 89%, interclass correlation was 83%, and standard error of measurement was 2.76. The interclass correlation for scoring system was 93% and Pearson&aposs correlation was 90%. Correlation of the test-retest scores was statistically significant (p<0.01).
Conclusion: This story retelling test has appropriate validity and reliability. It is suitable for quick assessment of language structure in 6-7 year old, Persian children.

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Background and Aim: Verb is one of the most important aspects of a sentence, and verb deficit is a noticeable part of developmental language disorders. In Iran, there is no standard test for evaluating this aspect of language in children. This study aimed to develop and evaluate a picture verb test for 36-54 month-old normal Persian-speaking children, and assess its ability to differentiate between children.
Methods: A list of verbs that could be depicted was collected and content validity was assessed by seven speech therapist. 55 verbs were selected. Then, three pictures were prepared for each verb and one of those pictures was chosen by the same seven specialists. 106 children aged 36-54 months participated in this study. They were divided into three groups (36-42, 42-48, and 48-54 months). Reliability of this test was assessed by Spearman&aposs correlation and internal consistency. Correlation between children&aposs scores and their age was calculated.
Results: Content validity index of all verbs were 1. Spearman&aposs correlation of 0.89 and internal consistency of 0.60 was obtained. By deletion of item method, the Kuder-Richardson score was enhanced to 0.71. There was a significant correlation between children&aposs ability to respond and their age (r=0.76, p < 0.001).
Conclusion: This test is a suitable tool for assessment of verbs in 36-54 month-old Persian-speaking children and can differentiate between three groups under study.

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Background and Aim: All activities of daily living need to balance control in static and dynamic movements. In recent years, a numerous increase can be seen in the functional balance assessment tools. Functional balance tests emphasize on static and dynamic balance, balance in weight transfer, the equilibrium response to the imbalances, and functional mobility. These standardized and available tests assess performance and require minimal or no equipment and short time to run. Functional balance is prerequisite for the most static and dynamic activities in daily life and needs sufficient interaction between sensory and motor systems. According to the critical role of balance in everyday life, and wide application of functional balance tests in the diagnosis and assessment of patients, a review of the functional balance tests was performed.
Methods: The Google Scholar, PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, Magiran, Iran Medex, and IranDoc databases were reviewed and the reliable and valid tests which were mostly used by Iranian researchers were assessed.
Conclusion: It seems that Berg balance scale (BBS) have been studied by Iranian and foreign researches more than the other tests. This test has high reliability and validity in elderly and in the most neurological disorders.

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Background and Aim: Auditory temporal processing reveals an important aspect of auditory performance, in which a deficit can prevent the child from speaking, language learning and reading. Temporal resolution, which is a subgroup of temporal processing, can be evaluated by gap-in-noise detection test. Regarding the relation of auditory temporal processing deficits and phonologic disorder of children with dyslexia-dysgraphia, the aim of this study was to evaluate these children with the gap-in-noise (GIN) test.
Methods: The gap-in-noise test was performed on 28 normal and 24 dyslexic-dysgraphic children, at the age of 11-12 years old. Mean approximate threshold and percent of corrected answers were compared between the groups.
Results: The mean approximate threshold and percent of corrected answers of the right and left ear had no significant difference between the groups (p>0.05). The mean approximate threshold of children with dyslexia-dysgraphia (6.97 ms, SD=1.09) was significantly (p<0.001) more than that of the normal group (5.05 ms, SD=0.92). The mean related frequency of corrected answers (58.05, SD=4.98%) was less than normal group (69.97, SD=7.16%) (p<0.001).
Conclusion: Abnormal temporal resolution was found in children with dyslexia-dysgraphia based on gap-in-noise test. While the brainstem and auditory cortex are responsible for auditory temporal processing, probably the structural and functional differences of these areas in normal and dyslexic-dysgraphic children lead to abnormal coding of auditory temporal information. As a result, auditory temporal processing is inevitable.

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Background and Aim: One of the common problems in many types of aphasia syndromes is word retrieval and/or production difficulty. So, designing a valid test that can examine this problem based on related processes and influencing factors is important. Picture confrontation naming is a typical method for assessing and treatment of word retrieval impairments. The aim of this study was determining the validity and reliability of oral picture-naming test in assessing word retrieval ability of aphasic adults.
Methods: Content and face validity of the test, that contains the line drawings of 115 Persian nouns, were assessed by speech therapists, graphists and painters. Then, the test was administered on 10 aphasics and 30 age-, gender- and education-matched normal subjects in two steps. Construct validity and internal consistency of test were investigated. External consistency was analyzed by test-retest method.
Results: The content and face validity of all items were more than 90 and 85 percents, respectively. There was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of patients and normal subjects (p<0.001). The internal consistency of 0.98 was determined for the test. The intra-class correlation coefficient of this test was 0.98.
Conclusions: The oral picture-naming test had good content, face and construct validity. Also, internal and external consistencies were high. So, this test is a valid instrument for assessing naming ability of aphasic patients by a variety and big set of picture.

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Background and Aim: Temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) is one of the most frequent epileptic syndromes in adults. Some patients with epilepsy, especially TLE, have central auditory disorders, such as temporal processing, even though they have normal peripheral auditory function. The Gaps-in-Noise (GIN) test is one of the new tests for assessing auditory temporal resolution. The aim of this study was to evaluate temporal resolution ability in patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy.
Methods: In this cross-sectional and descriptive-analytic study, 25 subjects with temporal lobe epilepsy (11 patients with right temporal lobe epilepsy and 14 patients with left temporal lobe epilepsy) and 18 normal control subjects of 15 to 50 years of age were assessed by the GIN test. Parameters of GIN test were analyzed by one-way ANOVA and compared between the three groups.
Results: There was a significant difference in the mean of approximate threshold and percentage of correct answer in GIN test in the right ear, left ear, and mean of both ears between patients with temporal lobe epilepsy and normal subjects (p<0.05). However, difference between right and left temporal lobe epilepsy groups were not significant (p>0.05).
Conclusion: The lower percentage of correct answer and higher approximate threshold in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy in comparison with the normal control group revealed temporal processing deficiencies especially in temporal resolution abilities. This may be due to involvement of structures related to temporal processing.

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Background and Aim: Bilingualism, as one of the discussing issues of psychology and linguistics, can influence the speech processing. Of several tests for assessing auditory processing, dichotic digit test has been designed to study divided auditory attention. Our study was performed to compare the auditory attention between Iranian bilingual and monolingual young adults.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 60 students including 30 Turkish-Persian bilinguals and 30 Persian monolinguals aged between 18 to 30 years in both genders. Dichotic digit test was performed on young individuals with normal peripheral hearing and right hand preference.

Results: No significant correlation was found between the results of dichotic digit test of monolinguals and bilinguals (p=0.195), and also between the results of right and left ears in monolingual (p=0.460) and bilingual (p=0.054) groups. The mean score of women was significantly more than men (p=0.031).

Conclusion: There was no significant difference between bilinguals and monolinguals in divided auditory attention and it seems that acquisition of second language in lower ages has no noticeable effect on this type of auditory attention.

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Background and Aim: Time compressed speech test is one of the most common types of monaural central auditory processing tests assesses the temporal resolution. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the impact of compression rate and sex on results of this test among the young individuals with normal hearing.

Methods: The Persian version of time compressed speech test with six lists of 25 monosyllabic words was prepared in three compression rates of 0, 40 and 60 percent. 36 young people with normal hearing and age range of 18 to 30 years were assessed with time compressed speech test in the most comfortable level in each ear separately. Then scores were compared between two ears, genders and three compression rates.

Results: There was a significant difference between word recognition scores of three compression rates (p<0.0001). Significant difference was revealed between word recognition scores of both ears, just in the 60% compression rates. No significant difference was found between the word recognition scores of the two genders.

Conclusion: Word recognition scores decreases with increase of the presentation rate of speech stimuli. Time compressed speech test accompany with other audiologic tests can be used to examin the auditory temporal processing and speed of speech processing as a test battery.

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Background and Aim : Learning and memory are two high level cognitive performances in human that hearing loss influences them. In our study, mini-mental state examination (MMSE) and Ray auditory-verbal learning test (RAVLT) was conducted to study cognitive stat us and lexical learning and memory in deaf adults using sign language.

Methods: This cross-sectional comparative study was conducted on 30 available congenitally deaf adults using sign language in Persian and 46 normal adults aged 19 to 27 years for both sexes, with a minimum of diploma level of education. After mini-mental state examination, Rey auditory-verbal learning test was run through computers to evaluate lexical learning and memory with visual presentation.

Results: Mean scores of mini-mental state examination and Rey auditory-verbal learning test in congenitally deaf adults were significantly lower than normal individuals in all scores (p=0.018) except in the two parts of the Rey test. Significant correlation was found between results of two tests just in the normal group (p=0.043). Gender had no effect on test results.

Conclusion: Cognitive status and lexical memory and learning in congenitally deaf individuals is weaker than in normal subjects. It seems that using sign language as the main way of communication in deaf people causes poor lexical memory and learning.

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Background and Aim: Staggered spondaic words (SSW) test examines central auditory nervous system . Some researches show stuttering causes hyperactivity in motor system of the right hemisphere and cerebellum and decreases activity in the left hemisphere. During stuttering also, central auditory processing is decreased . The aim of this study was to compare the Persian staggered spondaic word test results between persistent developmental stutterers and normal subjects.

Methods: Thirty people with persistent developmental stuttering were participants of this cross-sectional descriptive-analytic study, which were aged 11 to 40 years. The control group matched for gender and number with stutters. They were 8 females and 22 males, with the age of 11 to 40 years, without any stuttering history, neurological diseases and auditory disorders.

Results: Stutterers were in normal category in corrected staggered spondaic words test. The mean scores of errors of right compete, right ear, left compete, left ear and total in corrected s taggered spondaic words between control and stuttering group showed significant differences. There was a significant relationship between stuttering and effect, too (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Based on the obtained results of this study, stutterers may have different cortical and sub - cortical brain activity than people who have not stutter . Central auditory processing abilities of stutterers are weaker than normal people.

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Background and Aim: Cerebrovascular accident is a neurological disorder involves central nervous system. Studies have shown that it affects the outputs of behavioral auditory tests such as dichotic auditory verbal memory test. The purpose of this study was to compare this memory test results between patients with cerebrovascular accident and normal subjects.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 20 patients with cerebrovascular accident aged 50-70 years and 20 controls matched for age and gender in Emam Khomeini Hospital, Tehran, Iran. Dichotic auditory verbal memory test was performed on each subject.

Results: The mean score in the two groups was significantly different (p<0.0001). The results indicated that the right-ear score was significantly greater than the left-ear score in normal subjects (p<0.0001) and in patients with right hemisphere lesion (p<0.0001). The right-ear and left-ear scores were not significantly different in patients with left hemisphere lesion (p=0.0860).

Conclusion: Among other methods, Dichotic auditory verbal memory test is a beneficial test in assessing the central auditory nervous system of patients with cerebrovascular accident. It seems that it is sensitive to the damages occur following temporal lobe strokes.

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Background and Aim: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the central nervous system diseases can be associated with a variety of symptoms such as hearing disorders. The main consequence of hearing loss is poor speech perception, and temporal acuity has important role in speech perception. We evaluated the speech perception in silent and in the presence of noise and temporal acuity in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Methods: Eighteen adults with multiple sclerosis with the mean age of 37.28 years and 18 age- and sex- matched controls with the mean age of 38.00 years participated in this study. Temporal acuity and speech perception were evaluated by random gap detection test (GDT) and word recognition score (WRS) in three different signal to noise ratios.

Results: Statistical analysis of test results revealed significant differences between the two groups (p<0.05). Analysis of gap detection test (in 4 sensation levels) and word recognition score in both groups showed significant differences (p<0.001).

Conclusion: According to this survey, the ability of patients with multiple sclerosis to process temporal features of stimulus was impaired. It seems that, this impairment is important factor to decrease word recognition score and speech perception.

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Background and Aim: Attention has causal role in speech and language processing. Studies are limited about relation between attention and language development. As a result, the purpose of this study was to investigate the difference shifting attention function in children with developmental stuttering and fluent speech.

Methods: Thirty children who stutter (21 boys and 9 girls) and thirty children who did not stutter (21 boys and 9 girls) were evaluated. Shifting attention function was investigated using Wisconsin card sorting test. The data were analyzed via Kolmogorov-Smirnov, independent t, and Mann-Whitney U-tests.

Results: Between group analysis showed significant differences for all of the indexes in Wisconsin card sorting test . The number of categories completed in children who stutter was significantly less than that control group (p<0.05). But preservative errors, total errors, total tries, time of test performance and try for first pattern in children who stutter was more than in the control group and data differences were significant for all of the indexes (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The findings of this study show that children with and without stuttering are different in shifting attention function and children who stutter have weaker function in shifting attention. The findings were linked to emerging theoretical frameworks of stuttering development and that were taken to suggest a possible role for attention processes in developmental stuttering.

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Background and Aim: Specific language impiarment (SLI) is one of the most prevalent developmental language disorders its diagnosis is a problematic issue among researchers and clinicians because of the heterogeneity of language profiles in the affected population and overlapping with other developmental language disorders. The aim of this study was to review the suggested diagnostic criteria for this disorder, controversies about these criteria and identify the most accurate diagnostic methods.

Methods: Published article from 1980 to 2012 in bibliographic and publisher databases including Pubmed, Google scholar, Cochran library, Web of Science, ProQuest, Springer, Oxford, Science direct, Ovid, Iran Medex and Magiran about the diagnostic methods for discriminating preschoool children with specific language impiarment from normal developing children were reviewd in this article. These keywords were used for research: “specific language impairment”, “SLI”, “diagnosis or identification”, “standardized tests”, and “tests for language development”.

Conclusion: The results of this study show inspite of agreement of researchers and clinicians about exclusionary criteria as one basic part of the diagnosis of specific language impiarment , there is no consensus about the other part, inclusionary criteria. Different studies used different inclusionary criteria which can be divided to categories of clincal judgment, discrepancy-based criteria, standardized testing, clinical markers and markers from spontaneous speech samples. Advantages, disadvantages, and clinical applicability of each diagnostic method are discussed in this article.

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Background and Aim: Universal newborn hearing screening program (UNHS) using otoacoustic emission (OAE) has been expanded dramatically. The aim of this study was to compare the characteristics of OAE in different time periods.

Methods: In this cohort study, 54 well babies were tested using screening transient-evoked otoacoustic emission in 12, 24, 36, 48 hours and 1 week of their age in Tamin Ejtemaii hospital of Zahedan, Iran. Parameters of "pass" and "fail" level, duration of the test, repetition rate for getting definite result and cooperation level of the parents were analyzed.

Results: The failing rate decreased markedly with age. The major part of this decrement concerned to the age of 12 to 24 hours (left ear: p=0.012 and right ear: p=0.057). Only for the age of 12 hours, the test repetition reduced the failing rate significantly (left ear: p=0.001 and right ear: p<0.001). The test duration reduced significantly with age increment and decreased from the 75 second in age 12 hours to 21 second in age of 24 hours. The test time median for 36, 48 hours and one week of age was 13, 8.4 and 14.3 second, respectively. Among the 54 parents requested to come back for retest one week later, 5 (9.3%) cooperated.

Conclusion: Age effect on referral rate were confirmed in this study high referral rate and poor parent cooperation were the main problems in universal newborn hearing screening program in Zahedan city.

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Background and Aim: Grammatical skills development of hearing-impaired children depends on using appropriate educational rehabilitation programs. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of linguistic plays on the grammatical skills in hearing-impaired children with hearing aids.

Methods: Ten hearing-impaired children with hearing aids, aged between 5 and 7, were randomly assigned to two groups (5 children in each group). Each treatment group received 12 sessions on linguistic plays. The grammatical skills of these children were evaluated via the TOLD-P: 3 (Persian version) in addition, their level of intelligence was assessed by the Raven test.

Results: The difference between the scores of both control and treatment groups revealed a statistically significant difference in grammatical skills (t=7.61, p=0.001) and three subskills of the children who participated in the linguistic plays. These subskills include syntactic understanding (t=3.16, p=0.013), sentence imitation (t=1.71, p=0.006), and morphological completion (t=6.55, p=0.001). In other words, the findings suggest that linguistic plays have a significant impact on the improvement of the aforementioned skills in hearing-impaired children.

Conclusion: Results suggest that it would be beneficial to include linguistic plays as part of routine rehabilitation programs as a means of improving the grammatical difficulties of children. After partaking in linguistic plays, children significantly improved their ability to comprehend the meaning of sentences and also to recognize, understand, and use common Persian morphological forms.

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Background and Aim: Music exists in all cultures many scientists are seeking to understand how music effects cognitive development such as comprehension, memory, and reading skills. More recently, a considerable number of neuroscience studies on music have been developed. This study aimed to investigate the effects of null and positive background music in comparison with silence on auditory-verbal memory performance.

Methods: Forty young adults (male and female) with normal hearing, aged between 18 and 26, participated in this comparative-analysis study. An auditory and speech evaluation was conducted in order to investigate the effects of background music on working memory. Subsequently, the Rey auditory-verbal learning test was performed for three conditions: silence, positive, and null music.

Results: The mean score of the Rey auditory-verbal learning test in silence condition was higher than the positive music condition (p=0.003) and the null music condition (p=0.01). The tests results did not reveal any gender differences.

Conclusion: It seems that the presence of competitive music (positive and null music) and the orientation of auditory attention have negative effects on the performance of verbal working memory. It is possibly owing to the intervention of music with verbal information processing in the brain.

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Background and Aim: Although double dichotic digit test is a useful tool for assessing the central auditory system in adults, it is more useful for evaluating younger children. The present study aimed to develop the Persian version of the single dichotic digit test and to obtain initial normative data.

Methods: The Persian version of the present test consisted of three different sets of 25 single digit pairs for testing in the free recall, directed recall to right, and directed recall to left conditions. The digits in each list were recorded dichotically on a compact disc. The sectional study was performed on 126 male students, aged between 7 and 9. The test-retest reliability was assessed in 29 subjects two to four weeks after the first test session.

Results: In seven year olds, the mean right and left ear scores increased from around 95.79% and 89.69%, respectively. In eight year olds, the mean right and left ear scores increased from around 98.59% and 96.29%, respectively. The mean right ear advantage decreased from around 6.13% in 7 year olds to around 2% in 8 year olds (p=0.001). No significant difference was found in scores between the free recall and directed recall conditions (p>0.05). The test had a high test-retest reliability (p>0.05).

Conclusion: The Persian version of the test has a high test-retest reliability for evaluating male children aged between 7 and 9 it can be used for assessing binaural integration in male children of this age group.