2023 CiteScore: 0.5
pISSN: 2538-385X
eISSN: 2538-3868
Editor-in-Chief:
Kazem Malmir, Ph.D.
Vol 13 No 2 (2019)
Introduction: One of the prevalent developmental disorders is Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Some children with ASD have language impairments besides communication disorders. Although the main linguistic impairment in this group has been reported in their pragmatic ability, some other linguistic elements such as grammar might be impaired, too. The primary purpose of this narrative review was to study the grammatical characteristics of children with ASD.
Materials and Methods: To find the related documents with this narrative review, we adopted 114 papers from the databases of Google Scholar, Web of Knowledge, Scopus, and PubMed. Out of these, 48 papers were selected to be studied.
Results: The studies grouped into four: group of comparing grammatical characteristics of children with ASD and typically-developing children, group of comparing grammatical characteristics of children with ASD and individuals with specific language impairments, group of investigating the relationship between grammar and the theory of mind in children with ASD, and group of processing basis of grammar in ASD children that is named developmental language disorder recently after specific language disorder.
Conclusion: The studies reported conflicting results because of two main factors: differences in the types of studies and heterogeneity of the ASD group. Thus, some children with ASD show grammar impairments and need precise assessment for proper intervention and treatment.
Introduction: Primary dysmenorrhea is characterized by pain during menstruation without any pelvic pathology. It is a common problem among females in their reproductive age. However, exercise is a known intervention to relieve the symptoms. This study aimed to assess the effect of core stability exercises on pain severity, pain duration, and drug consumption in primary dysmenorrhea in adult females.
Materials and Methods: Thirty-four non-athletic, unmarried girls, aged 18-25 years, who suffered from moderate to severe primary dysmenorrhea, were randomly assigned to the experimental (n=17) and control groups (n=17). The experimental group performed 8 weeks of core stability exercise (3 sessions/week, 45-60 min/session). Before and after the exercise program, pain intensity, pain duration, and the medication usage of the participants were assessed by “numeric pain scale” (10-point scale), “the number of hours that the pain continued” and “the total amount of painkiller consumption for the pain reduction” for 2 days prior to menstruation, and 2 days after menstruation onset. The statistical analysis was performed using ANCOVA and dependent t-test. The confidence interval was considered at 0.95 (α<0.05).
Results: In comparison with the control group, there was a significant decrease in pain intensity (P=0.008), pain duration (P=0.021), and the number of painkillers consumed (P=0.018) in the experimental group.
Conclusion: Core stability exercises may be effective in reducing pain intensity, pain duration, and consumed painkillers.
Introduction: Many studies have claimed that speech perception in dyslexic children is impaired in comparison to normal children in a way that dyslexic children are weaker in the discrimination and identification of phonemes. In this research, we study speech perception, syntactic skills, and phonological processing in the normal and dyslexic Farsi-speaking children.
Materials and Methods: We examined the speech perception in 30 normal and 18 dyslexic children, using speech identification task in 3 continua of voice onset time (VOT) in [ba-pa], [da-ta], and [ga-ka]. We also studied 2 other skills to examine the processing of phonological information and syntactic skills. We used the nonword repetition test and passive sentence comprehension, respectively. To compare the data, the Mann-Whitney U test, t-test, and logistic regression were used.
Results: Dyslexic children in speech identification task performed similarly to normal children in all 3 continua (P=0.81, 0.87, and 0.58); but, in the nonword repetition test, they were significantly lower than normal children (P=0.01), and in the passive sentence comprehension task, there was no significant difference between normal and dyslexic children (P=0.12).
Conclusion: The results of various studies for speech perception and linguistic abilities in dyslexic children are contradictory. They are mostly related to the tasks that have been used. Therefore, more studies in the future are suggested.
Introduction: Attitudes and aptitudes play an important role in the acceptance of hearing aids. We can objectively and subjectively examine the attitude of individuals toward hearing loss and hearing aids, using Attitudes towards Loss of Hearing Questionnaire (ALHQ). The aim of this study was to examine the effect of demographic factors on the responses of individuals to ALHQ and to compare the scores of the questionnaire between hearing aid users and hearing aid non-users.
Materials and Methods: This study was performed on 100 hearing-impaired participants. They were divided into hearing aid users and non-users groups. After hearing assessments, the participants were asked to complete the questionnaire; then, the responses of the two groups were compared and the effects of demographic factors on the responses were examined.
Results: The questionnaire scores in the hearing aid non-users were higher than the hearing aid users. The results showed a reverse correlation between the history of hearing aid usage and the scores of the questionnaire. There was also a reverse correlation between the mean score of pure tone thresholds in the left ear with the scores of the questionnaire in the hearing aid users. Furthermore, there was a significant correlation between the type of hearing aid and the scores of the questionnaire.
Conclusion: Hearing aid non-users have a more negative attitude toward hearing aids and are more likely to deny their hearing loss compared to hearing aid users.
Introduction: Educational performance and executive functions are two factors related to positive outcomes. Delay or the reduction of the development of executive functions in children with intellectual disabilities (ID) may result in negative outcomes in social skills and educational competence. The main important aspects of executive functions, including working memory, attention, and inhibition are considered the main predictors of learning social skills, as well as educational skills in life. The current study aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of family-based cognitive rehabilitation on working memory, sustained attention, inhibition, and social skills of children with ID.
Materials and Methods: The participants of the present study were a subgroup of 11-14-year-old children with ID, who were studying in the exceptional schools from 2017 to 2018 in Tehran, Iran. The samples were selected by clustering multi-stages method; 15 students were assigned to the experimental group and 15 students were assigned to the control group. Then, they were evaluated by the Boshra test for cognitive inhibition, working memory test for children, integrated visual and auditory (IVA) test, behavior rating inventory of executive function (BRIEF), and Vineland social skill scale before and after the cognitive family-based intervention. The experimental group received 12 sessions of intervention. The data were analyzed by SPSS v. 24.
Results: Family-based cognitive rehabilitation had significant effects on improving working memory, attention, and inhibition (P<0.001) through addressing underlying executive functions, but had no significant effect on the social skills of children with ID.
Conclusion: As a new intervention, cognitive family-based rehabilitation may improve the executive functions of children with ID as supplementary intervention along with behavioral or other cognitive interventions to help children overcome some challenges under social situations.
Introduction: This study aimed to explore foot pronation deformity on the postural control of the body and the onset time of the electrical activity of ankle muscles during landing.
Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 27 people with a pronated foot deformity and 27 normal people participated. The force plate was used to measure the postural control of the body. Surface electromyography signals were recorded in landing tests with electromyography, which synchronized with a force plate. To compare the performance of the two groups, we used multivariate analysis of variance.
Results: The results indicated a statistically significant difference in the medial-lateral direction of differences between center of pressure and center of mass (COP-COM) between foot pronation (pronated) and normal group during landing (P<0.05). Regarding the variable of the onset time of the muscular electrical activity during landing, there was a statistically significant difference in medial gastrocnemius, soleus, tibialis anterior, and peroneus longus muscles between the two groups (P<0.001).
Conclusion: Foot pronation can be regarded as a factor affecting the biomechanics of landing by changing postural control of the body in the medial-lateral direction and the onset time of the electrical activity of medial gastrocnemius, soleus, tibialis anterior, and peroneus longus muscles during landing movement.
Introduction: Frozen shoulder or adhesive capsulitis disorder is a progressive painful shoulder condition associated with stiffness and functional restriction of both active and passive shoulder motion, especially in abduction and external rotation.
Case Description: A 38-year-old man presented with right frozen shoulder started 3 months before admission. The patient reported no change in his symptoms after the previous 10 sessions of conventional physiotherapy. Physical examination findings were significant for both active and passive range of motion with 8 out of 10 in pain score (visual analog scale (VAS); 8/10). For the treatment, we applied the fascial treatment, including the fascial distortion model (FDM) and fascial training. After 10 sessions, the shoulder range of motion restored to 140° abduction and 90° external and internal rotation with no pain (VAS; 0/10).
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