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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: The temporal processing is one of the critical features in central auditory processing system the gap in noise (GIN) test is the appropriate clinical tool for appraisal of temporal resolution which in people with multiple sclerosis may encounter with complications. Consequently, the aim of this study was to compare the results of gap in noise test in 18 to 40-year-old patients with multiple sclerosis and normal participants.
Methods: This cross-sectional non-invasive cohort study was conducted on 20 patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (mean age: 28.9 years) and 26 healthy normal hearing participant (mean age: 27.7 years) in the age range 18 to 40 years. The approximate threshold and percent of corrected responses were obtained and then were analyzed using Student&aposs t-test.
Results: There was an increase in gap detection and decrease in percent of corrected responses in gap in noise test within multiple sclerosis patients in comparison with normal people (p<0.0001). Moreover, there were a correlation of 78% between increasing disease duration and approximate threshold and also a correlation of 82% between increasing disease duration and corrected responses (p<0.0001).
Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, it seems that people with multiple sclerosis suffer from some degree of disorder in the temporal resolution which might be due to involvement of central nerve system and, somehow, deficit in central auditory processing. Therefore, for evaluating the temporal resolution in people with multiple sclerosis, gap in noise test could be useful.

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Bachground and Aim: The involvement of central auditory nervous system is relatively prevalent in patients suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS). To understand cortex function and to investigate cognitive impairment, event related potential is considered as a valuable tool. This study was aimed to compare the amplitude and latency of the event related potentials of P300 in MS patients and normal individuals.
Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted on 21 MS patients and 27 normal cases aged 18-50 years. Auditory P300 was recorded with oddball paradigm, using two tone burst stimuli (1000 and 2000).
Results: In MS patients, mean latencies were significantly longer (p<0.001) and mean amplitude were significantly lower (p<0.001), in both males and females. Sex did not affect P300 latencies and amplitudes significantly.
Conclusion: MS patients show some degree of event related potential abnormalities. Combination of auditory P300 and neuropsychological tests may be useful to investigate cognitive impairment in MS patients.

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Background and Aim: Social interaction plays an essential role in acquisition of speech and language as one of the most important developmental factors. The recent studies indicated that language abilities have a close relationship to social skills. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship of development of expressive language and dimensions of social skills in 4-6-years-old Persian-speaking children.
Methods: In this study, 123 normal Persian-speaking 4-6-year-old children (76 boys and 47 girls) who had all the specific criteria for normality were randomly selected from several preschools in Shiraz, Iran. During the first stage of testing, test of language development (TOLD) was administered to investigate language development of participants later, the social skills rating system (SSRS) including the teachers&apos and parents&apos forms were completed by the parents and teachers of participants. The data were analyzed using Pearson&aposs correlation coefficients.
Results: The correlations between expressive language and dimensions of social skills were significant (p<0.001), but teachers&apos form had a greater correlation with language development (p=0.031). Besides, Pearson&aposs correlations between teachers&apos and parents&apos forms was not significant (p=0.27).
Conclusion: According to our results, expressive language develops along with social skills development. On the other hand, these results are based on the differences between home and educational environment in social skills achievements of children. These findings are to be considered to provide crucial training in both environments for the children to improve the development of their expressive language.

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Background and Aim: Oral habits have hazardous effects on children&aposs speech which are sometimes irreversible and permanent. This study was planned to assess these oral habits among children in day-care centers of Tehran, Iran.
Methods: In this descriptive, cross-sectional study, 400 children were selected through multistage sampling from 16 day-care centers in Tehran, Iran, They were 24 to 72-month old. Bottle feeding, pacifier usage and digit sucking were determined. After interviewing parents, oral examination [using Paediatric oral skills package (POSO)] and doing standard Phonetic test, a questionnaire was completed for each child.
Results: Sixty eight had one oral habit. The most prevalent habit was digit sucking (52.9%). The prevalence of bottle feeding, both digit sucking with bottle feeding, and pacifier habit were 38.2%, 7.3% and 1.4%, respectively. There were significant relationship between digit sucking and malocclusion (p<0.001, r=0.4) and hard palate malformationand (p<0.001, r=0.39). Besides, a significant relationship between bottle feeding and  malocclusion (p<0.001, r=0.25) was conduted. Digit sucking had significant relationship with lisping, too (p<0.001, r=0.37). There was no gender priority in oral habits.
Conclusion: Oral habits cause permanent structural conversion in speech producing and oral status.

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Background and Aim: Phonological processing skills include the abilities to restore, retrieve and use memorized phonological codes. The purpose of this research is to compare and evaluate phonological processing skills in 6-7 year old blind and sighted Persian speakers in Tehran, Iran.
Methods: This research is an analysis-comparison study. The subjects were 24 blind and 24 sighted children. The evaluation test of reading and writing disorders in primary school students, linguistic and cognitive abilities test, and the naming subtest of the aphasia evaluation test were used as research tools.
Results: Sighted children were found to perform better on phoneme recognition of nonwords and flower naming subtests and the difference was significant (p<0.001). Blind children performed better in words and sentence memory the difference was significant (p<0.001). There were no significant differences in other subtests.
Conclusion: Blind children&aposs better performance in memory tasks is due to the fact that they have powerful auditory memory.

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Background and Aim: Studies have shown that most children before age 4 are able to comprehend and express wh-question. In the Persian language, a case study has confirmed these results. The aim of this study is to evaluate the ability of 4-6 year olds to comprehend and express wh-question.
Methods: Seventy two 4-6 year-old Persian-speaking children were selected randomly. Wh-words consist of: what, where, who, why, and when. In the part of comprehension subjects answered questions about two pictures, and in the part of expression they asked questions elicited by a speaking puppet about four pictures. Descriptive analysis and student&aposs t-test were used for data analysis.
Results: In comprehension 4-6 year-old children gained the complete score (2) with SD=0 in all wh-words. However, 4-5 year old children gained the score of 1.89 with SD of 0.32 for the word when. In expression, independent t-test showed the maximum score of 3.52 with SD of 0.84 related to questions with who. 5-6 and 4-5 year old subjects had significant differences in questions with what (p=0.005), where (p=0.003), who (p=0.012), and when (p<0.001). Most errors were expressed in question with when.
Conclusion: Subjects of this study had the ability to comprehend and express wh-words. Comprehension of wh-words is easy for 4-6 year-old children they are able to use them in questions, but have some application errors.

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Background and Aim: Reading is the most important human need for learning. In normal-hearing people working memory is a predictor of reading comprehension. In this study the relationship between working memory and reading comprehension skills was studied in hearing-impaired children, and then compared with the normal-hearing group.
Methods: This was a descriptive-analytic study. The working memory and reading comprehension skills of 18 (8 male, 10 female) sever hearing-impaired children in year five of exceptional schools were compared by means of a reading test with 18 hearing children as control group. The subjects in the control group were of the same gender and educational level of the sample group.
Results: The children with hearing loss performed similarly to the normal-hearing children in tasks related to auditory-verbal memory of sounds (reverse), visual-verbal memory of letters, and visual-verbal memory of pictures. However, they showed lower levels of performance in reading comprehension (p<0.001). Moreover, no significant relationship was observed between working memory and reading comprehension skills.
Conclusion: Findings indicated that children with hearing loss have a significant impairment in the reading comprehension skill. Impairment in language knowledge and vocabulary may be the main cause of poor reading comprehension in these children. In hearing-impaired children working memory is not a strong predictor of reading comprehension.

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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: About 1.5 percent of exceptional children suffer from impaired hearing and this factor affects the teaching and learning process. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of frequency of knowledge of results (KR) on the learning of children with hearing impairment.

Methods: Twenty-four individuals with hearing impairment with the mean age of 10.56 with SD 2.53 years (range: 7-14 years) were divided into three homogenous groups according to their records after pre-test. They practiced for eight sessions according to mentioned ways (feedback of 0%, 50% and 100%). The acquisition, learning and translation tests were run. MANOVA with repeated measures and ANOVA were used to analyze the data from the acquisition, retention and transition tests.

Results: All groups progressed during training and at various stages (acquisition, retention and transition). However, the results of the comparison between means of the three training groups showed significant differences in the acquisition process (p=0.008), learning (p=0.001) and transition (p=0.035). This means that feedback training groups (100%) had better performance in acquisition process, and also in retention and transition (50%).

Conclusion: According to the results of this study, too much feedback interferes with learning of tasks in individuals with hearing impairment and feedback (50%) had better learning. This finding shows that rules regarding feedback also affect the people with hearing impairment.

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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: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is characterized with inflammation, demyelization and gliosis. It may be relapsing, remitting, or progressive. Cognitive impairment is relatively prevalent in patients wit h multiple sclerosis and as duration of disease is longer as cognition impairment is more. To understand the cognitive impairment, event related potential can be considered as a valuable tool. This study aimed to investigate the influence of duration of disease and expanded disability status scale (EDSS) on the amplitude and latency of the event related potentials of P300 in patients with multiple sclerosis.

Methods: In this cross-sectional and non-intervention study, 21 patients with multiple sclerosis with mean age of 27.8 with SD 7.1 years (between 18 to 50 years) were enrolled. The patients were selected randomly. The correlation of P300 event-related potential and oddball paradigm was assessed, using two 1000 and 2000 Hz tone burst stimulus.

Results: There was a significant correlation between the latency of P300 wave and duration of disease and expanded disability status scale (p < 0.05) there was high correlation in both electrode sites (r>0.50). The correlation of amplitude of P300 and duration of disease and expanded disability status scale was not significant (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Significant correlation between the latency of P300 and the duration of multiple sclerosis and expanded disability status scale can be a sign of central nervous system changes. Besides, there is a relation between physical disability and cognitive impairments.

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Background: Balance disorders are common in patients following stroke. There are a number of physiotherapy modalities to treat balance impairments, one of which is vibration. The effects of vibration on balance disorders after stroke have not been investigated. This case report demonstrates the short-term effects of plantar vibration on the balance impairment of a patient with stroke.

Case presentation: A 72-years-old man with right hemiplegia resulted from stroke was admitted for vibration therapy after not responding to standard rehabilitation interventions. He complained of balance problems despite walking independently. Main studied outcomes were timed up and go test and posturography. Foot sensation, ankle plantar flexor spasticity, and the passive range of ankle dorsiflexion were assessed, as well. Vibration with a frequency of 100 Hz was introduced to the sole of the affected foot for 5 minutes. After intervention, all tests were improved compared to the baselines.

Conclusion: This case showed that the vibration was effective for improving balance disorder after stroke.

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Background and Aim: Phenylketonuria (PKU) is an inherited metabolic disease. The aim of this study was investigation the intelligence and language function in children with PKU based on the age of treatment onset and quality of dietary control.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the language and intelligence of 31 children with PKU at the age of 4 to 6.5 years were investigated by test of language development-third edition ( TOLD-3) and Wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence (WIPPSI), respectively the data compared with of 42 normal children. Patients were classified into 2 groups with different level of dietary control as good and poor [serum phenylalanine (Phe) level less and more than 6 mg/dl, respectively].

Results: There were significantly differences (p=0.001) between children with PKU and controls in intelligence and language scores. Early treatment improved significantly the intelligence and language scores in comparison with late treatment (p=0.019). Comparing late treatment before and after the age of 1 year showed that late treatment until 1 years of age improved significantly (p=0.050) all of functions except performance intelligence quotient (IQ). In early treated PKU, good dietary control improved significantly (p=0.021) and also, verbal and total IQ in comparison with poor dietary control.

Conclusion: Although, the language development in children with PKU is affected by age of treatment onset, cognitive development features such as verbal and total IQ is affected not only by the time of treatment onset but also by the quality of dietary control.

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Background and Aim: As word recognition score test is one of the most important tests in audiologic test battery and there is no study on reliability and validity of existing monosyllabic word lists, we decided to investigate this in people with noise induced hearing loss.

Methods: In this non-randomized descriptive-analytic study, 30 adults with noise induced high frequency hearing loss with the age of 18 to 46 years were evaluated. Construct validity was evaluated by comparing Mosleh lists with list NU-6 and reliability was achieved by test-retest (-two-week interval).

Results: The mean (SD) score of word recognition was 94.01 (3.95) percent for list 2, 90.40 (4.90) percent for list 4, 89.08 (4.43) percent for list 5, and 94.10 (4.11) percent for list 9. A reliability of 94% was achieved in all four lists . Regression analysis revealed that word recognition score (WRS) had decreased in proportion to pure tone average.

Conclusion: Four lists have good construct validity. All word lists are phonetically reliable too.

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Background and Aim: Diabetes mellitus is a progressive metabolic disease. Studies about the relationship between diabetes mellitus and auditory impairment have shown variable results in supporting the fact that diabetes may have a complex repercussion on the auditory pathways. We aimed to evaluate hearing in patients with type II diabetes mellitus with behavioral and electrophysiological auditory tests.

Methods: In a cross-sectional study, we assessed 30 patients with type II diabetes mellitus with the mean age of 43.7 (SD: 1.3) years, ranging 40-45 years, and 30 matched healthy subjects with the mean age of 41.5 (SD: 1.5) years. Subjects were evaluated using auditory brainstem response (ABR) and pure tone audiometry. The results were compared between two groups.

Results: Pure tone audiometry was normal. There was a significant increased latency for waves I, III, and V, and also, interpeak latencies of I-III, III-V, and I-V waves (p<0.05).

Conclusion: ABR latency prolongation indicates abnormal nerve conduction velocity in patients with type II diabetes mellitus. ABR can be an important clinical tool for evaluating diabetes influence on cochlear nerve conduction velocity before hearing loss occurs in these patients.

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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: Concerning the important role of parents of hearing-impaired children in auditory-verbal therapy, this study mainly focused on preparing a Persian version of the “Parental needs questionnaire” and analyzing its validity and reliability.

Methods: First, the original English version of the questionnaire “the needs of hearing-impaired Children’s Parents in Auditory-Verbal Therapy” translated to Persian, based on the approved translation protocol of International Quality of Life Assessment by world health organization. Then, the Persian version presented to seven experts for validating the content and their feedbacks were applied into the questionnaire. Finally, the questionnaire presented to parents of 51 hearing-impaired children who attend in auditory-verbal therapy, and the collected results were analyzed statistically.

Results: The overall mean of content validity index in 32 items of the questionnaire was 0.87. The overall Cronbach’s alpha of this questionnaire was 0.86 in the test and 0.99 in the re-test phases.

Conclusion: Based on the obtained results, the Persian version of the questionnaire has a satisfactory content validity and reliability and could be used in clinics and medical centers for analysis of parental needs.

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Background and Aim: Dyslexia is the most common learning disability. One of the main factors have role in this disability is auditory perception imperfection that cause a lot of problems in education. We aimed to study the effect of auditory perception training on reading performance of female students with dyslexia at the third grade of elementary school.

Methods: Thirty-eight female students at the third grade of elementary schools of Khomeinishahr City, Iran, were selected by multistage cluster random sampling of them, 20 students which were diagnosed dyslexic by Reading test and Wechsler test, devided randomly to two equal groups of experimental and control. For experimental group, during ten 45-minute sessions, auditory perception training were conducted, but no intervention was done for control group. An participants were re-assessed by Reading test after the intervention (pre- and post- test method). Data were analyed by covariance test.

Results: The effect of auditory perception training on reading performance (81%) was significant (p<0.0001) for all subtests execpt the separate compound word test.

Conclusion: Findings of our study confirm the hypothesis that auditory perception training effects on students' functional reading. So, auditory perception training seems to be necessary for the students with dyslexia.