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Background The oropharyngeal dysphagia is an underestimated symptom with various causes in the geriatric population. Clinical presentation is often insidious and dysphagia symptoms are seldomly mentioned by elderly patients although causing many life-threatening complications. The aim of this work was to introduce an easy applicable tool to be used by the caregivers and general practitioners for screening of dysphagia in geriatrics for early detection of at risk individuals. Methods A sample of 200 Egyptian Arabic-speaking elderly patients (65 years or older) not complaining of dysphagia was recruited from nursing homes in Greater Cairo Area. They or their caregivers completed the designed screening tool, including; the designed questionnaires of dysphagia manifestations and eating habits. General, oral motor and bedside evaluation were also performed. In addition to filling in the EAT10 questionnaire and FEES that was performed for only suspected cases for the purpose of validation of the screening tool. Results The dysphagia manifestations questionnaire was significantly correlated with EAT 10 with p value of 0.001. It was correlated in some of its aspects with FEES showing quite reliability with p values’ range between 0.012 and 0.044. The Questionnaire of eating habits reliability of r- value of 0.568 slightly exceeding EAT10 reliability of r -value of 0.721 in the subjects under study. The cutoff point of total score of the dysphagia manifestations was > 5, with a sensitivity of 17.65% & a specificity of 94.20%. The cutoff point of total score of the bedside evaluation was ≤ 1 with a sensitivity of 66.9% & a specificity of 56.9%. Conclusion the use of this easy applicable screening tool managed to suspect and later on diagnose cases with oropharyngeal dysphagia in non-complaining aging subjects.

EnAbstract Background Psycholinguistics or the psychology of language refers to the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, and understand language. Objectives This work aimed at designing and applying an Arabic Psycholinguistic Screening Tool on a group of native Egyptian students aged 7 through 9, 11 years old, enrolled in primary grade 1 through primary grade 4, and analyzing the obtained results in order to attain a better understanding of psycholinguistic skills in the studied age range and preliminarily study the constituent items of the tool. Participants and methods The sample in this study included 45 healthy native Arabic-speaking Egyptian children: 25 boys and 20 girls. The groups were as follows: group I (from 7 to 7; 11 years old), group II (from 8 to 8; 11 years old), and group III (from 9 to 9; 11 years old). They were attending regular classes in schools following the Egyptian Arabic National curriculum. The participants were enrolled in primary grade 1 through primary grade 4. Children were randomly selected from a cluster of children reported to be subjectively free from any hearing difficulties, delayed language development, medical problems, and intellectual, social, psychiatric, psychological, or serious academic difficulties. Psycholinguistic abilities for each child were evaluated using the Arabic Psycholinguistic Screening Tool designed in the current study. Tested parameters included oral similarity, morphological closure, proper word and nonsense word repetition, phonological deletion, phonological rhyming awareness and production, spoken and written vocabulary, sequencing events, sight and sound decoding, in addition to sight and sound spelling. The results obtained were then analyzed using descriptive, comparative, correlation, reliability, and validity studies. Results The results reflected internal consistency as well as the content, construct, and convergent validity of the Psycholinguistic Screening Tool for children aged 7 through 9; 11 years for those items covering oral similarity, morphological closure, proper word repetition, spoken and written vocabulary, proper word repetition, spoken and written vocabulary, sequencing of events, sight and sound decoding, and sound spelling. Although nonsense word repetition, sight spelling, phonological rhyming awareness, and production subtests were found to have convergent validity as well as internal consistency, statistical studies did not quite prove their construct validity. Conclusion and recommendations (a) The phonological rhyming awareness and production as well as nonsense word repetition and sight spelling subtests should be revised taking into consideration the Arabic educational curriculum applied in Egyptian schools. (b) Further studies should be carried out on the Arabic Screening Tool to study predictive validity on a larger group of children. (c) Studies should be carried out using the Arabic Psycholinguistic Screening Tool on a group of children with learning disabilities to examine its diagnostic sensitivity.

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Background Bilingualism is the phenomenon of speaking and understanding two languages. The increased representation of bilingual populations calls for in-depth studies of bilingualism. The aim of this work is to devise an assessment protocol that could help in evaluating some aspects of Arabic and English languages acquired in typically developing bilingual preschool Egyptian children as a preliminary attempt to comprehend the language profiles of both languages in the studied group. The study was conducted on 80 bilingual Egyptian preschool male and female children exposed to both Arabic and English languages. Their age ranged from 4 to 4 years and 11 months from international English schools with regular attendance and of normal Arabic language development. All were subjected to the designed Bilingual English-Arabic semantic test, and narrative assessment and their parents and teachers filled in the questionnaires addressing the variables affecting both languages’ acquisition. Results Bilingual English-Arabic Semantic and Narration Tests revealed that children under the study had variable development in some aspects in semantic and narration between both languages and according to their age. Conclusions Data gathered from the study can be considered a preliminary nucleus for identification of the bilingual children’s normative data to be able to pick up the cases with language impairment of bilingual children and help in making diagnostic decisions and planning for future intervention.

EnAbstract Background Improving speech intelligibility in dysarthric patients is considered the primary goal of therapeutic intervention. Aim This study aimed at examining factors affecting speech intelligibility in four Arabic-speaking dysarthric groups using perceptual and instrumental techniques in order to gain a better understanding of the important factors contributing to reduced speech clarity in these patients. Methods and procedures Participants included 30 male Egyptian dysarthric patients (patient group) and 30 male age-matched healthy individuals (control group). The patient group was subdivided–on the basis of the neurological examination and investigation that had been carried out previously at the Neurology Department, Kasr el Aini Hospital–into four subgroups; spastic, ataxic, flaccid, and hypokinetic (having Parkinsonism). Speech samples consisting of spontaneous speech and a standard reading passage (that the participants were asked to repeat after the assessor) were used to obtain the following variables: speech rate (number of words per minute), Speech Intelligibility Score, number of nonintelligible words per minute, dysphonia grade, percent of consonants correct, percent of vowels correct, Nasalance Score, fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, harmonic-to-noise ratio, duration of /a/, first and second formant frequency values for three corner vowels /a/, /i/, and /u/, voice onset time of /b/, /t/, /k/, stop gap of /t/, /t/, /d/, /d/, and duration of /s/ and /∫/. The study examined the differences between the healthy control group and the different dysarthric groups for each variable as well as the correlation between speech intelligibility and each variable within each dysarthric subgroup. Outcomes and results The Speech Intelligibility Score was the highest for flaccid dysarthria and the lowest for ataxic. Results revealed significant differences between the control group and each of the patient groups studied for all subjective measures as well as most of the instrumental measures that were included in the study. A significant positive correlation was found between speech rate and speech intelligibility in patients with ataxic and flaccid dysarthria. However, a negative correlation was found between speech rate and speech intelligibility in patients with hypokinetic dysarthria. A significant negative correlation was found between speech intelligibility and jitter, F1 and F2 of /u/, stop gap of /t/, /t/, /d/, and /d/, and /s/ duration in spastic, ataxic, and flaccid groups. In addition, a significant negative correlation was found between shimmer and speech intelligibility in the ataxic group and between Nasalance Score and speech intelligibility in the flaccid group. Conclusion and implications Factors contributing to reduced speech intelligibility vary from one type of dysarthria to the other.