Background: Stuttering is one of the most prevalent speech and language disorders. Symptomatology of stuttering has been surveyed from biological, developmental, environmental, emotional, learning and linguistic viewpoints. Literature shows that syllable structure as a linguistic feature, may influence the frequency of disfluencies.Objectives: This study aimed to determine the effect of syllable structure on the frequency of disfluencies in adults with stuttering. Patients and Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive-analytic study was performed on 16 adults (14 males and 2 females) who stutter with the mean age of 24.56 years. The frequency of disfluencies was evaluated by asking the subjects to read two lists, one list contained 60 words and another one consisted of 60 nonwords. The words and nonwords were selected based on simple and difficult syllable structures. The data were statistically analyzed through paired t-test using the SPSS software. Results:The results of this study showed a significant difference between the frequency of disfluencies between the simple syllable structures and difficult syllable structures in nonword reading tasks (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in the frequency of disfluencies between the simple syllable structures and difficult syllable structures in word reading tasks (P > 0.05). Conclusions:The findings of this study indicate that the frequency of disfluencies was increased in difficult syllable structures in comparison to simple syllable structures. According to the results, it seems that certain linguistic features, such as syllable structure can affect speech-motor output in people who stutter through affecting phonological encoding.

Background & Objectives:The educational environment and family are of the most important factors in the growth and development of linguistic and verbal skills of a child. Certain conditions such as environment can influence the linguistic characteristics of the child. This study aimed to examine the syntax comprehension of Persian language speaking children among foster families and typically-developing children.Methods: 72 Persian speaking children living in orphanages between the ages 4 to 6 and 75 typically-developing 4 to 6 year-old children were assessed by the Persian syntax comprehension test. This test measures 24 syntactic constructs of Persian language in 96 items. Also, the Mann-Whitney Test was used to compare the groups. Results:Given the results of the Persian syntax comprehension test, the mean syntax compression score of children living in orphanages were significantly lower than those of typically-developing children (P<0.05). Conclusion:The foster children should be more paid attention to, in order to particularly enhance their syntax comprehension.

Background: The current study aimed to develop a comprehensive phonological awareness intervention to train all levels of phonological awareness skills and to investigate its effect on the reading abilities of cochlear implanted children. Materials and Methods: This study was the single-subject intervention. Phonological awareness intervention programme was developed and validated by experts' opinions. Six elementary first graders with cochlear implants and weak or delayed reading development, in 5–7-year-old range, were trained in phonological awareness skills. ‘Auditory test of phonological awareness skills’ was used to evaluate the subjects' phonological awareness skills. Nama reading test was also used to determine the level of reading performance. Results: The results showed that all six subjects with cochlear implants had improvements of both phonological awareness skills and reading skills after participating in the phonological awareness intervention programme. This improvement was not only observed immediately after intervention but was also preserved in follow-up. Conclusion: The findings of this study demonstrated the importance of planning an intervention programme about phonological awareness skills for elementary first graders with cochlear implant, and the important role of such an intervention programme in improving their performance in phonological awareness tasks, and then in reading tasks consequently. The importance of improvement in these skills could considerably affect these children's linguistic and psychological abilities, which may facilitate their education at higher grades.