Background/aims Communication problems are a core feature of autism spectrum disorder. These problems usually lead to challenges in social interactions. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of the Son-Rise Programme on improving social interaction and communication in children with autism spectrum disorder. Methods Thirty children with autism spectrum disorder (aged 4–6) were involved in this study. The children were assigned randomly to one two groups, either the 1-week intensive Son-Rise Programme or the control group. They were evaluated using the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale before and after the study. Results The participants in the group of the Son-Rise Programme showed a significant improvement in their social interaction skills compared to the control group (P=0.001). Conclusions The Son-Rise Programme could improve social interaction in children with autism spectrum disorder.
Objective Stuttering is a developmental disorder of speech fluency with unknown causes. One of the proposed theories in this field is deficits in speech motor control that is associated with damaged control, timing, and coordination of the speech muscles. Fundamental frequency, fundamental frequency range, intensity, intensity range, and voice onset time are the most important acoustic components that are often used for indirect evaluation of physiological functions underlying the mechanisms of speech motor control. The purpose of this investigation was to compare some of the acoustic characteristics of speech motor control in children who stutter and children who do not stutter. Materials & Methods This research is a descriptive-analytic and cross-sectional comparative study. A total of 25 Azari-Persian bilingual boys who stutter (stutters group) and 23 Azari-Persian bilinguals and 21 Persian monolingual boys who do not stutter (non-stutters group) in the age range of 6 to 10 years participated in this study. Children participated in /a/ and /i/ vowels prolongation and carrier phrase repetition tasks for the analysis of some of their acoustic characteristics including fundamental frequency, fundamental frequency range, intensity, intensity range, and voice onset time. The PRAAT software was used for acoustic analysis. SPSS software (version 17), one-way ANOVA, and Kruskal-Wallis test were used for analyzing the data. Results The results indicated that there were no significant differences between the stutters and non-stutters groups (P>0.05) with respect to the acoustic features of speech motor control. Conclusion No significant group differences were observed in all of the dependent variables reported in this study. Thus, the results of this research do not support the notion of aberrant speech motor control in children who stutter.
Context: Divided attention is impaired in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The influence of divided attention on people with AD has been considered from different perspectives, such as motor ability, cortical responses, performance in divided attention evaluation tasks, and comparison of divided attention and directed and focused attention. The purpose of the current study was to investigate divided attention in AD patients from these different perspectives.Evidence Acquisition: An electronic search was performed in January and February 2016 in PubMed, Science Direct, Medline, Scopus, Google Scholar, and Ovid databases to obtain relevant articles published from 1980 to 2015. The keywords used included "Alzheimer's disease", "attention", and "divided attention". The articles obtained were studied using the following standard protocol for inclusion criteria written in the English language, the focus of studies was on divided attention in AD, and no other types of cognitive ability. From the 60 articles found, 10 articles that were adhered to the inclusion criteria were selected for consideration. Results:The 10 studies reviewed considered divided attention in AD from different domains. These domains showed that AD patients had impaired performance in tasks that required divided attention and showed deficits in motor tasks stemming from the negative effects of impaired divided attention on motor ability. Different types of brain deficits have been observed in neuroimaging techniques in individuals with AD during divided attention tasks. Those with AD showed greater impairment for divided attention than for directed and focused attention. Conclusions:Divided attention influences the lives of those with AD from several perspectives. These include the inability to focus on two or several relevant stimuli simultaneously that require divided attention rather than directed and focused attention and a deficit in the performance of motor tasks such as gait and other problems in daily life, such as falling. In addition, depression also had a negative effect on divided attention. Depressed AD patients had more difficulty in daily activities than AD patients without depression. The areas of the brain involved in divided attention in individuals with AD differ from those involved in unaffected people.
As screening tests are tools to quantify communication-interactive abilities of speech and language; therefore, to evaluate, screen, diagnose and treat various aspects of one’s abilities, they are necessary. The purpose of this study is to review the existing autism screening tools, their subtests, administration, scoring, and application in clinical and research contexts in children and adults. This study was a review of autism screening tools; hence, an electronic search through databases such as PubMed, Scopus, Medline, SID, and Magiran was performed from 2000 to 2021. The tests were examined in terms of year of publication, duration, age range, assessment method, subtests, and psychometric properties and furthermore, they were reviewed in details. In this study, 19 autism screening tests were evaluated and The Autism Spectrum Quotient was found to have the shortest administration time while The Gilliam Autism Rating Scale had the longest, and the only test that varied in duration was the Autism Screening Instrument for educational planning. Autism screening is a complex issue. Reviewing these articles reveals that some tests have been used more in recent years due to their specialized subtests or easy and fast administration. Prompt testing is extremely crucial especially in emergency situations like the current COVID-19 pandemic the world is struggling with today. A review of speech tone tests shows that the CARS-2 is one of the most widely validated autism assessments.
Background and Aims: Bilingual children are sometimes over-identified with language impairment and sometimes their language impairment under-identified that in either case, proper intervention is not possible. Accurate measurement of bilingual child language development involves assessing both of their languages. The purpose of this study was to identify a set of measures that would discriminate language impairment in bilingual Turkish-Persian children aged 5 to 7 years in Tehran. Materials and Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, the language sample of 24 bilingual children with no language impairment and 8 bilingual children with language impairment was analyzed according to the linguistic measures of mean length of Terminable-unit, number of total words, number of different words, and number of grammatical errors per Terminable-unit. Children without language impairment were selected from kindergartens and schools by multi-stage cluster sampling method. Language-impaired children were selected by the Speech-Language Pathologist with at least three years of bilingual speech and language pathology services from Tehran-based speech therapy clinics in an accessible manner. There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of nonverbal intelligence, age of exposure and duration of exposure to Persian. Parents responded to questions about their perceptions of their children’s speech and language skills and family history of speech and language problems. Results: Diagnostic analysis indicated that 3 measures discriminated the groups of children with sensitivity 87.5%: the Parent Report Questionnaire, number of total words, and mean length of T-unit. Conclusion: According to the results, Indicators of parental reports and language criteria in identifying the language damage of Turkish-Persian bilingual children can be of diagnostic use for speech and language pathologists.
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