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Background and aim: Reading is one of the most essential skills in this century. Reading disorders can cause several problems for the person who has reading disorder. Early assessment and diagnosis play an important role in treatment of this disorder. The main purpose of this study was to develope a screening inventory reading test (IRT) for first to fifth grade student in Isfahan in order to early diagnosis of reading disorder.
Materials and Methods: The test, consisting of 100 words context and four comprehension questions, named Inventory Reading Test (IRT), was evaluated by several speech therapists. It was standardized by testing on one thousand boys and girls, 200 students in every grade, that were selected through a multi-stage random sampling method. Test was performed on two other groups, a normal and a reading-disordered.
Results: Scores of reading accuracy and velocity were highly correlated with the test total score. Test reliability was calculated as 0.77 by Cronbach`s alpha measure. There was significant difference between two groups mean score (p=0.01).
Conclusion: IRT seems to be an appropriate tool for screening reading disorder of first to fifth grade students.

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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: 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: 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: The language sample analysis (LSA) is more common in other languages than Persian to study language development and assess language pathology. We studied some psychometric properties of language sample analysis in this research such as content validity of written story and its pictures, test-retest reliability, and inter-rater reliability.

Methods: We wrote a story based on Persian culture from Schneider’s study. The validity of written story and drawn pictures was approved by experts. To study test-retest reliability, 30 children looked at the pictures and told their own story twice with 7-10 days interval. Children generated the story themselves and tester did not give any cue about the story. Their audio-taped story was transcribed and analyzed. Sentence and word structures were detected in the analysis.

Results: Mean of experts' agreement with the validity of written story was 92.28 percent. Experts scored the quality of pictures high and excellent. There was correlation between variables in sentence and word structure (p<0.05) in test-retest, except complex sentences (p=0.137). The agreement rate was 97.1 percent in inter-rater reliability assessment of transcription. The results of inter-rater reliability of language analysis showed that correlation coefficients were significant.

Conclusion: The results confirmed that the tool was valid for eliciting language sample. The consistency of language performance in repeated measurement varied from mild to high in language sample analysis approach.

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Background and Aim: Auditory-perceptual assessment of voice a main approach in the diagnosis and therapy improvement of voice disorders. Despite, there are few Iranian studies about auditory-perceptual assessment of voice. The aim of present study was development and determination of validity and rater reliability of Persian version of the Consensus Auditory Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE -V).

Methods: The qualitative content validity was detected by collecting 10 questionnaires from 9 experienced speech and language pathologists and a linguist. For reliability purposes, the voice samples of 40 dysphonic (neurogenic, functional with and without laryngeal lesions) adults (20-45 years of age) and 10 normal healthy speakers were recorded. The samples included sustain of vowels and reading the 6 sentences of Persian version of the consensus auditory perceptual evaluation of voice called the ATSHA.

Results: The qualitative content validity was proved for developed Persian version of the consensus auditory perceptual evaluation of voice. Cronbach’s alpha was high (0.95). Intra-rater reliability coefficients ranged from 0.86 for overall severity to 0.42 for pitch inter-rater reliability ranged from 0.85 for overall severity to 0.32 for pitch (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The ATSHA can be used as a valid and reliable Persian scale for auditory perceptual assessment of voice in adults.

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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.