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Background and Aim: Naming test is an appropriate tool for assessing, diagnosing and treating word finding difficulties in Aphasic patients. Considering the importance of this test and lack of such kinds of tests in the field of verb in Farsi, the purpose of this research is to provide a verb-naming test in Persian.
Materials and Methods: In order to provide the tool based on the foreign samples, the common traits are exploited according to selection the verbs and based on the frequency criteria, Acquisition age, length of word, and investigating the inferior studies, 132 Persian verbs were chosen and picture of the selected verbs were drawn. They were offered to 15 experts to give points to the pictures based on the previous criteria of our research including familiarity, imagination and beauty of viewing. The mean score of obtained points was computed and 50 verbs were selected out of 132 suggested verbs.
Results: Findings of this study showed that the selected verbs were of high frequency verbs. Also they are those verbs which have lowers acquisition age. Most of the verbs were compound and it indicates that in Persian language compound verbs are of high frequency. Moreover, it appeared that high objectivity degree caused to high scores of imagination. Then most of the verbs were objective verbs.
Conclusion: Finally 50 verbs with their related pictures made this naming test. It is worth mentioning that remaining verbs were ranked based on their scores.

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Background and Aim: Aphasia is common symptom after acute stroke with a prevalence in earlier studies between 21 - 38% .In Iran unfortunately no investigation has been reported on the prevalence of aphasia .So the main aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of aphasia after stroke at hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of medical sciences (TUMS).

 aterials and Methods: This study is a cross-sectional design and has been done on 30 patients with brain injury who admitted to TUMS hospitals during three months. The Mississippi Aphasia Screening Test (MAST) was used to screening aphasia patients.

Results: The descriptive results indicated, from 22 patients with CVA five cases (22.7%) were aphasic. Mean age of aphasic patients (69.6 years) was more than non-aphasic patients (49.24 years) and of five aphasic patients, three cases (60%) were male and two of them (40%) were female. Also, regarding background diseases, four of five (80%) aphasic patients had history of high blood pressure and diabetes. 

Conclusion: Results of this study was consistent with prevalence of aphasia in last studies. Also results of this study confirmed other studies based on that etiology of lesion, age, and high blood pressure and diabetes history of the patients plays an important role in prevalence of aphasia.

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Background and Aim: Impairment of noun retrieval is common among aphasic patients, but some of previous studies represent differences between noun retrieval ability of various aphasia syndromes. Current study investigates and compares the picture naming ability of 4 patients with fluent and non-fluent aphasia. 

Materials and Methods: Present study investigated the naming ability of 2 fluent and 2 non-fluent aphasic patients with oral picture naming test. This test contains line drawing of 109 nouns. Patients were asked to name each picture with a single word. Responses were classified according to Philadelphia Naming Test scoring system as correct and semantic, formal, mixed, non-word, unrelated and others error (no response, description/circumlocution, miscellaneous error). Then, the data were investigated in terms of descriptive statistics and analyzed by Mann-Whitney U test.

Results: The score of non-fluent aphasics was more than fluent ones. The percentage of semantic errors in fluent group and no responses among non-fluent patients were more than the other types. Despite of personal differences, all error types were found in responses of patients. The difference between score and error types in fluent and non-fluent patients was not significant (p .05).

Conclusion: This scoring system can define a variety of word retrieval errors. The fluent aphasics have more noun retrieval problems than non-fluent patients. Although, there are differences between two groups, but error type in picture naming is not a precise factor for distinguish between various aphasia syndromes and there is similarity in impaired underling mechanisms and naming behavior of them.    

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Background and Aim: Semantic test "Pyramid and Palm Trees"(PPT) Test was used for assessing cognition and semantic system in brain disorders, semantic dementia, Alzheimer disease and aphasia. This test was designed in 1992 by Howard and Patterson and includes both versions picture and word. It has validity and reliability. The aim of this study is to determine of validity and reliability of Persian picture version "Pyramids and Palm Trees" Test and compare with aphasia and normal adults.

Materials and Methods: In this cross - sectional study, 45 subjects included 15 Aphasia and 30 normal adults respectively the mean age and standard deviation of 53 (7.77), 53 (7.91) years participated. All of participants were matched in the age and sex, and education and bilingualism. In the first stage, the picture version PPT had given to 14 expert(11 Speech and language pathologists, 3 Linguists) in order to determine content and face validity. According to their comments, pictures that were very far from Persian culture were replaced with proportional pictures with Persian culture. Then the reliability was calculated by performance of PPT during an interval of 5-7 days in two stages for all of aphasia patients. In order to compare of results, PPT was performed on normal adults. Then, the results were analyzed by SPSS18 software. The statistic tests were included of lavashh correlation for validity, Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) for reliability and independent T-Test for comparison of scores mean of picture version PPT between aphasia and normal adults.

Results: ICC ranges for reliability were 0.88 – 0.93. Also difference of scores mean of picture version PPT between aphasia and normal adults were significant (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The Persian version PPT have validity and reliability. This study showed semantic disorder in aphasia patients in compared with normal adults. 

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Background and Aim: “Executive function” is a term describing the processes required for conscious control of thought, emotion, and action that have centered role in management of one's day-to-day life. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between executive function and performance on selected linguistic tasks in persons with aphasia (PWA) and left frontal lobe lesions.

  

Materials and Methods : Subjects were 12 right-handed, left hemisphere stroke patients and 12 normal adults as control group. Farsi aphasia test were administered to determine of persence and type of aphasia, as well as auditory comperehension(AC) and naming scors. Wisconsin Card Sort Test(WCST) and Tower Of London(TOL) were used to assess the executive function skills of planning, working memory, mental flexibility, self monitoring, inhibition irrelevant behavior, shifting between concept and action.

 

Results: The control group scored higher than the individuals with aphasia on the executive function tests (P<0/001). In WCST there was not a significant correlation between the AC and category completed (CC) as well as preservative errors(PE). There was a significant correlation between the AC and total errors (TE) (p=0/02) . There was a significant correlation between naming and CC (p=0/01) and TE (p=0/005). There was not a significant correlation when comparing the naming and PE (p=0/194). A comparison between naming scores and TOL showed a significant correlation (p=0/009). There was not a significant correlation between AC and TOL (p=0/113).

  

Conclusion: This study showed that individuals with aphasia have cognition disorder, other than language disorder. If they have a good naming ability, patients ' performance ontestsof executive function will be better.

 

Keywords: Aphasia, Executive function, Language function, Naming, Auditory comprehension, Persian Language

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Background and Aim: The aim of this study was to collect and review Aphasia screening test s for speech- language pathologists .

  

Materials and Methods : Searching was done in databases of MEDLIN, SID, Magiran, IRAN MEDEX and 5 site of ASHA, Pub Med, Google Scholar, Science Direct , and Web of Science from 1949 to 2012 , and Screening tests were collected and reviewed on the basis of time of composition, subtests ,validity, and reliability.

  

Results: In this study, 14 screening tests were identified. The maximum number of items were ( 72 subtests) for screening test and the minimum number of test items were ( 4 subtests) for Franchay Aphasia Screening test (FAST). The latter is the first test which evaluated the areas of comprehension and writing in addition to reading and speech . The results indicated that 10 test s have one type of validity, and eight tests have reliability .

  

Conclusion: Considering the importance of the aphasia disorder and lack of a complete source for quick and easy identification of Aphasia, and also finding screening tests in this disorder in Persian language, the results of this study can be useful to familiarize speech and language therapists with this disorder. A pplication of these test s is recommended in various stages of rehabilitation .

  

Key words: Screening, Assessment, Stroke, Aphasia, Review article.

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Background and Aim: A Concrete and Abstract Word Synonym Test is a test which assessed semantic system in patients with acquired language disorder specifically semantic impairment. The aim of this study is to design a valid and reliable test for assessment of comprehension of concrete and abstract words in different types of aphasia.

 

Materials and Methods: The type of study is test construction and was computed as cross-sectional. First, a collection of words based on frequency were chosen in order to construct the test. These words were given to 15 experts (10 speech and language pathologists and 5 linguists) in 3 stages, in order to rate words with 0-100 scale. Then words, which had higher average than 90 score were chosen. After determining face and content validity, the test was performed on subjects. Subjects included 20 aphasic patients (12 men and 8 women) and 50 normal people (28 men and 22 women) ranging in age from 20 to 65 years. After 5 to 7 days, to determine reliability of test, test was performed on subjects again. Results of this study were analyzed by SPSS 16.

 

Results: Results showed that this test has a higher validity than %90. Coronbach alpha for internal consistency was 0.500. For investigation of test-retest reliability, mean difference of test scores in 2 stages of administration was significance (p<0.038). Pearson correlation coefficient between mean scores of patients in 2stages were 0.857 and ICC range was 0.857-0.923 that was significant (p<0.001). The cut of point of test was also 46. Comparison of mean scores of concrete and abstract word synonym test in patients and normal people and also in patient with temporal lesion showed significant difference (p<0.001).

 

Conclusion: A Concrete and Abstract Word Synonym Test is a proper tool for assessing semantic system in aphasic patients and it can indicate semantic impairment in these patients.

 

Keywords: Synonym comprehension test, Concrete and abstract words, Validity, Reliability, Aphasia, Semantic impairment.