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 Background and aim: Dyslexia is a language learning disorder which leads to some impairment in written language including reading and spelling. Children with dyslexia are mostly suffering in areas like Morphology, Phonology, semantic and pragmatic. Thus the main purpose of this study is to investigate the morphological awareness, as a significant aspect in reading components (Speed, accuracy and understanding) in which the children are impaired. 

Material and Methods: In the current study, 27 dyslexic students and 57 normal students in second grade of primary school participated. Existence of dyslexia was determined through administrating a reading test of "Nama", and in order to be sure that none of the students of normal group has language deficit, the language development test "TOLD" was administrated on normal students. In order to assess morphological knowledge of participants, a morphological awareness test was administrated too. In addition to determine the reading speed, accuracy and comprehension, the "NAMA" subtests were employed. Data obtained, were analyzed with the help of inferential statistical methods such as linear Pearson correlation coefficient test, Spearman test, Normal Kolmogrov - Smirnov test, T-test and linear regression test (ANOVA).

Result: Correlation coefficient between morphological awareness and reading speed in whole sample was calculated to be -0.9158, that of morphological awareness and reading accuracy was 0.9514, and that of morphological awareness and reading comprehension was 0.926. This shows significant correlation among morphological awareness and components of reading skill. While the same correlation coefficients, in dyslexic children were respectively -0.689, 0.1403 and 0.1062. It shows that there was not significant relationship in dyslexic children. The T-test also indicated that morphological awareness, reading comprehension skills, reading speed and reading accuracy skills had significant meaningful differences between two groups.

Conclusion: morphological awareness, reading speed, accuracy and comprehension, were in a lower level among dyslexic children in comparison with normal children, and this can be regarded as one linguistic aspect that can be effectual in reading speed, accuracy and comprehension. However among the dyslexic children whose difficulties were limited to the word level (e.g. dyslexic group sample), morphological awareness did not have any influence on their reading skills.Key words: Morphological awareness, reading speed, reading accuracy,reading comprehension, dyslexia

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Abstract

Background and Aim: The human needs speech for making relationship, he achieves speech with linguistic structure including sound, word and more important than other the sentence. In Persian grammar, there are different types of sentences including: imperative, question, active, passive, exclamation. A childe makes sentence with single-word, telegraphic speech and then with composing names and verbs and propositions in his stage of growing and finally he expresses the passive, conditional, compound sentences. Because of no previous study has been done about the age of comprehension passive sentences in Persian language so we decided to run the comprehension passive sentences on normal children. And we got the age of growth about it in normal children then we compared it in hearing impaired children. The aim of this study was to compare for comprehension passive sentences in normal children 3 to8 years old with hearing impaired children 8years old.

Materials and Methods: A total of 691 normal children 3 to 8 years old in central Tehran and 18 hearing impaired children in special schools participated in this test. At first the test was conducted on 30 children, and proved its reliability. This test had 15sets of three pictures and child must show one of those three pictures. At first, two sets of three pictures were performed to child as example and practice then the passive sentence was expressed about it Colloquial and child must show it and if he/she couldn’t ,the examiner showed the correct picture and showed next picture as be offered to children should be familiar with the test. The child was described that he/she looked at pictures carefully and showed the correct picture after reviewing all the pictures. In continue, 15 pictures of this test were executes and examiner recorded the results.

Results: The highest number of correct responses were for normal children 8years old (Average: 13.93) and other records were in order for children 7 years old (Average: 12.51), 6 years old (Average: 9.37), 5 years old (Average: 8.09), 4 yeas old (Average: 5.31), 3 years old (Average: 3.61) and the lowest record of correct responses was for the hearing impaired children. The result of this study showed that there is a significant relationship among the ability of comprehension passive sentences and age, birth order, parents education (p<0.05) but there is no significant relationship between ability of comprehension passive sentences and their gender (p>0.05) and there is a significant deference between the average of percentage of responses and comprehension passive sentences in hearing impaired children in all the range of ages except 3 years old (p=1.000). It means that hearing impaired children in comprehension passive sentences are similar to children 3 years old.

Conclusion: The result of this study showed there is a significant relationship among the ability of comprehension passive sentences and age, birth order, parents education but there is no significant relationship between ability of comprehension passive sentences and their gender. The results of this study showed the ability of comprehension passive sentences in hearing impaired children 8 years old is like normal children 3 years old too.

Keywords: Passive sentences, Comprehension, Normal children, Severe hearing loss, The Persian language

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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: 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.

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Background and Aim: Proverb comprehension can be used to assess cognitive function. Since tests of proverb comprehension impressed by language and culture, designing proverb comprehension test in Persian is necessary in order to evaluate cognitive and executive function. The purpose of the present study was to design a proverb comprehension test and to determine its validity and reliability.

Material and Methods: The present, Proverb Comprehension Test includes two subscales of out context and in context. The statistical population of the study were students of elementary and high schools in 1393-1394. The sample included 234 student with age range 10 to 18 years old that selected by Convenience Sampling scheme. Two halves method and Cronbach's alpha test were used in order to evaluate internal consistency. Discriminative validity was achieved from comparing average scores of age groups. For investigation of concurrent validity, Pearson test was used between results of proverb comprehension test and verbal fluency test.

Results: Subscales of out context  Proverb Comprehension Test with verbal fluency test had positive significant relationship. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of subscales of out context, in context and the total test was respectively 0.76, 0.72 and 0.88 and the reliability coefficient of two halves method was 0.82. Comparing between groups indicated the discriminative validity of the test.

Conclusion: Proverb Comprehension Test is a valid and reliable test for measuring executive and verbal functions.

Keywords: Proverb Comprehension, Reliability, Verbal fluency, Validity