Background: Past studies have documented working memory impairment in participants with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (IQ>70), but inconsistent findings have been reported. One possibility is the existence of verbal responses in the evaluation of working memory performance. The aim of the current study is to examine the working memory performance and its correlation with a prominent deficit in participants with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders by non-verbal working memory tasks compared with typically developing samples. Methods: The current study is a cross-sectional, comparative study. The working memory performance of the 30 participants with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (7-16 years) and 30 typically developing was compared by working memory subtests of the Leiter International Performance Scale-Revised in Tehran, Iran. Two groups were matched for age and gender. ANOVA, ANCOVA, repeated measures ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data statistically. The significance value was set at p<0.05. Results: The results showed that if the effect of FSIQ (full-scale intelligence quotient) were controlled individuals with highfunctioning Autism Spectrum Disorders exhibited significant impairment in the Reverse Memory subtest (p=0.001). Also, unpredictably Forward Memory (r=0.38, p=0.03) and Reverse Memory tasks (r=0.38, p=0.03) displayed a significant positive correlation with the Social interaction subscale of the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (Second Edition). Conclusion: It seems that nonverbal working memory is impaired in persons with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders. Results of the current study revealed that factors like complexity and cognitive load of tasks may influence working memory performance in individuals with high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Background: Teachers are the greatest group of professional voice users. Prolonged, continuous speaking in a loud voice at school may entail a bad vocal health. It seems that their occupational circumstances make them more likely to develop voice disorders in comparison with other groups. Objectives: The purposes of this study are 1) to compare teachers with and without voice complaint on the Dysphonia Severity Index and 2) to compare component measures that establish Dysphonia Severity Index. Materials and Methods: This study included 40 female teachers with voice complaint and 40 female teachers without voice complaint between the ages of 30 and 50 years who were teaching in elementary schools of Tehran city. Simple non-random sampling was done for selected teachers in two groups. The examinees were asked to produce the vowel /a/ three times for calculating any variables, then measures of maximum phonation time, jitter, highest phonational frequency, and lowest intensity were obtained for each subject with Praat and Phonetogram softwares and incorporated into multivariate Dysphonia Severity Index formula. Kolmogoro-Smirnov one sample test and independent sample T-Test was used, the significance level was set at P < 0.05. Results: Results indicate that female teachers without voice complaint have significantly higher Dysphonia Severity Index scores than female teachers with voice complaint (mean Dysphonia Severity Index: 3.58 vs. 1.05, respectively), also significant differences are observed between groups of with and without complaint for four of components of the DSI (F0 high, I low, jitter and maximum phonation time) (P value = 0.001). Conclusions: The findings of this study indicate that there is a significant difference in Vocal Quality between teachers with and without voice complaint. This finding may indicate teachers with voice complaint have worse vocal quality that means they are at risk for voice problems. This information may be very important for voice professionals and, speech and language pathology to advice teachers with voice complaint and manage to advocate "good vocal health".

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