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Aims: Neonatal jaundice is a serious condition that, if not treated properly and promptly, can lead to fatal complications. this study aimed to assess mothers' knowledge and attitudes towards neonatal jaundice.
Instrument & Methods: Using a structured questionnaire, a descriptive (cross-sectional) study to assess the knowledge and attitudes on neonatal jaundice among the 200 mothers in Telafer General Hospital was conducted with an interview schedule and convenient sampling technique. Data were analyzed using SPSS 26.
Findings: The majority of the mothers (62.5%) have poor knowledge about neonatal jaundice, 30% of them have moderate knowledge, and 7.5% of them have good knowledge. Also, this study show the majority of the mothers (69%) have poor attitudes about neonatal jaundice, 25.5% have moderate attitudes, and  5.5% of them have good attitudes.
Conclusion: The mothers had poor knowledge and attitudes about neonatal jaundice.

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In this paper, at first the existing grounds of theorizing in children's literature are classified on an objective and logic basis. These grounds are: theories relating to the existence of children's literature, theories relating to the nature and the specific issues of children's literature, and revisions of the concepts and the categories of literary theories and their relations according to the nature and the specific issues of children's literature. The present article offers examples for each case. Then with regard to Vandergrift's figure of the focal points of the literary theories, the positions of children's literature theories on this graph are determined. By determining the dialectical relationship between literary theory and literary criticism, it is shown that the production of literary theory itself relies on literary criticism. At the end, by posing the need for complex thinking, the possibilities ahead the theorists are pointed out. Thus, the descriptive metatheory of children's literature is portrayed. This metatheory shows the routes and the areas of research in the field of children's literature.

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Childhood has been mentioned in gnostic texts in different shapes and forms. A number of Gnostics have tried to revive the positive aspects of childhood in wayfarers and to set the childhood behavior as a role model for mystical doctrine. They have tried to show that the true wayfarer is the one who is reborn with a voluntary death, and who tries to revive the pure, creative, truth-finding, and self-motivated innate nature of childhood within him. This article has tried through adoption of a psychological approach and via application of the descriptive and analytical method to elaborate on the behavioral, viewpoint, and language similarities of Gnostics and children in order to clarify the reasons behind usage of childhood metaphor by Gnostics to set a mystical role model. The domination of objective cognition and realism is one of the most important viewpoint similarities between Gnostics and children; and the inclination to submission, self-motivation, dependence, and astonishment are some of the most important behavioral similarities between mystics and children. Also usage of pictorial and symbolic language are the language similarities between children and Gnostics, which are all elaborated upon in this article.

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Lullabies, as the primary whispers of adults and children, have become a platform for research in the field of children and adolescent literature due to their thought-provoking content and diverse capacities. One of the practical fields of lullabies is to strengthen the spiritual intelligence of the audience. Spiritual intelligence and its strengthening in children is one of the issues in modern science. Based on this approach and focusing on the text of lullabies, components to enhance spiritual intelligence have been extracted from the text of lullabies and these components have been studied in a descriptive-analytical manner in the text of lullabies. The results of several components have been found in the texts of lullabies and the components of "sense of mission" and "self-awareness" have been among the most rewarding components

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Aims: Early identification of a young child with developmental delays or deficits is recognized as an essential part of good healthcare for children in regular pediatric practice. This study aimed to design and develop an educational model to guide mothers of toddlers to increase their knowledge and skills about assessing growth, development, and stimulation of child development.
Materials & Methods: This research is a quasi-experimental study using a two-group pretest-posttest design, which was carried out at the Aurdauri Public Health Center, Jambi City, Jambi Province, Indonesia, in May – November 2022. The subjects were 31 mothers of children aged 2–5 years old who were randomly selected with the criteria of being able to use Android properly and distributed into small groups (n=15) and large groups (n=16). The small group used the application with assistance and the large group without assistance. Data were analyzed using the paired t-test.
Findings: 82% of the mothers could not distinguish between growth and development, 82% knew about growth stimulation, 91% wanted to know about growth and development stimulation, and 90% preferred audiovisual information. The development of learning materials to stimulate the growth and development of 2–5 years children led to educational applications, and the use of android applications increased mothers' knowledge about stimulating child growth and development (p=0.001).
Conclusion: The application implementation shows a significant increase in the knowledge of mothers with children aged 2–5 years.
 

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Aims: In nurseries, hygiene measures are considered as an effective practice to prevent infection. By implementing appropriate hygiene techniques and effective prevention measures, the transmission of infectious diseases such as cholera among children and youth can be limited. The present study aimed to assess the effectiveness of an educational program on nannies' practice regarding cholera infection and explore any relationship between their practice and demographic characteristics.
Materials & Methods: This quasi-experimental study was conducted with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group in public nurseries in different cities of Baghdad province. Sixty nannies were randomly selected and divided into two equal intervention and control groups. The intervention group received the cholera education program, and the control group did not receive any intervention. Data were collected using a researcher-made checklist to evaluate nannies' practice and analyzed by SPSS 26 software.
Findings: Both groups had inadequate practice regarding cholera infection (0.96±0.31 and 1.00±0.15, respectively). After the implementation of the program, the practice of the intervention group improved significantly (1.59±0.13), while the practice of the control group remained inadequate (1.00±0.12). There was no significant difference in the mean scores of nannie’s practice based on their demographic characteristics (p>0.05), except for the level of education (p=0.0001).
Conclusion: The practice of nannies in public nurseries in Baghdad against cholera is limited, and the educational program of this study has a positive effect on the practice of nannies. The educational qualification of nannies plays a significant role in responding to the program.

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Aims: This study aimed to develop fundamental motor skill activities based on game circuits that aim to improve the motor skills of children with dyspraxia.
Instrument & Methods: This research involved instrument development, initial revision, and field trials. Instruments in-game circuits were designed with various motor challenges specifically designed to facilitate the development of basic motor skills. In the initial trial phase, activities were implemented with the participation of several children with dyspraxia. Then, instruments and activities were adjusted based on feedback and findings from the initial trials. Field trials were conducted through the participation of larger groups of children with dyspraxia to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the activities developed.
Findings: The development of fundamental motor skill activity based on the game circuit has a CVR value of 0.5, greater than the threshold limit of 0.62. Hence, it had good content validity in measuring the desired construct. The correlation calculation results showed a positive and significant relationship between the scores of assessors 1, 2, and 3 with a total score of assessors on aspects of movement skills, cognitive aspects, fun aspects, and attention focus. The ICC test results showed the instrument's reliability.
Conclusion: Developing fundamental motor skill activities through the game circuit approach can effectively improve the motor skills of children with dyspraxia.

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The purpose of this research is to analysis the attention to the audience in interdisciplinary studies in the field of children’s literature and suggest criteria for future research. In order to achieve this goal, the position of the audience has been described and analyzed in the structural elements of the research, including: purpose, components, method, and sample. Using Synthesis Research, 38 interdisciplinary research papers, including scientific articles and senior and doctoral dissertations, were selected and then their research structural elements were extracted and analyzed in descriptive tables. Based on the findings, three main goals were considered in these studies: Frequency, Representation, and Component Comparison. The studied components also fall into three areas of knowledge: psychology and education, sociology and culture, and ethics and religion. the number of components in the field of psychology and education is more than the other two. The research methodology of all studies was a content analysis method, and the sample of all of them was the child books, which was determined according to five criteria: year of publication and age group, author's name or particular book, type of story, specific subject, and selected books. Among them, the first criterion has been most widely used. Finally this study outlines the critical areas of research on children’s literature and identifies areas of further research.

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Aims: This study aimed to investigate the effect of a health education program on empowering mothers to prevent home accidents among rural children under five years old in Ilam County.
Materials & Methods: This research was a randomized controlled trial involving 88 mothers with children under five years old attending healthcare houses in Ilam County in 2022-2023 who were randomly assigned to the intervention and control groups. A one-month online educational intervention was implemented for the intervention group using the WhatsApp application, while the control group received no education. Data were collected using a questionnaire assessing the constructs of the health belief model regarding home accidents in children, completed online by the participants at baseline and three months later. Data were analyzed using SPSS 16 software, employing an independent sample t-test and paired sample t-test.
Findings: No significant difference was found between the two groups in the mean scores of the health belief model constructs regarding preventing home accidents in the pre-test phase (p>0.05). The results of the independent sample t-test showed a significant increase in the mean scores of health belief model constructs in the intervention group compared to the control group after a three-month follow-up (p<0.05).
Conclusion: Designing interventions based on the health belief model effectively empowers mothers to prevent accidents in rural children under five years old.
 

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Aims: This study aimed to investigate the impact of dental health education interventions using animation and leaflets on children's dental health behaviors.
Materials & Methods: The research employed a quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test groups, including a control group in 2021 in Indonesia. A sample of 60 elementary school students, aged 10-12 years, from Medan City, was divided into three groups of 20 students each. The interventions included media animation and leaflets, while the control group received traditional oral presentations. Behavioral changes were evaluated using three parameters of knowledge, attitudes, and actions through a questionnaire. The effectiveness of the interventions was assessed using univariate and covariance analysis.
Findings: The behavior scores were highest in the Animation group, with a mean of 52.00±4.54. In contrast, the Oral Presentation group (serving as the control group) had the lowest mean score of 46.90±6.42. The Leaflets group had an intermediate effect, with a mean score of 48.15±5.52. Across all groups, the total mean behavior score was 49.02±5.88.
Conclusion: Dental education using animation is the most effective manner in increasing dental care behavior among leaflets and oral presentations.

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Aims: Heart transplantation significantly alters the lifestyle and quality of life of children and adolescents post-surgery. These patients must strictly adhere to their treatment regimens to maintain graft viability and achieve better adaptation. Enhancing the quality of life in pediatric heart transplant recipients is a critical responsibility of nurses. This study aimed to evaluate the impact of a tele-nursing supportive educational program on treatment adherence and quality of life in children aged 12-18 years.
Materials & Methods: This quasi-experimental study with a single-group design without a control group was done on 41 pediatric patients who were referred to a specialized hospital for heart transplantation in Tehran in 2022. Participants were selected through census sampling and received education via communication platforms, such as WhatsApp, Skype, and Telegram, as chosen by the patients and their parents. The program spanned eight weeks, during which data were collected using a socio-demographic questionnaire, the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory for Cardiac Problems, and the Modanloo Medication Adherence Scale. Pre- and post-test results were analyzed using SPSS version 16.
Findings: There was a significant improvement in the mean quality of life score and its dimensions (p=0.001), as well as the medication adherence score and its dimensions (p=0.001) after the implementation and follow-up of the intervention program.
Conclusion: Tele-nursing interventions offer an effective and accessible approach to enhancing treatment adherence and improving the quality of life for pediatric heart transplant recipients.

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One of the fields that has been influenced by the linguistic methodology, and the results of the researches in the interdisciplinary fileds of psycholinguistics and clinical linguistics is the study of speech disorders, like stuttering. Stuttering is a speech disorder characterized by repetition of sounds, syllables, or words; prolongation of sounds; and interruptions in speech known as blocks. An individual who stutters exactly knows what he or she would like to say, but has trouble producing a normal flow of speech. In recent years many studies have examined whether there is a relationship between stuttering and linguistic features of the speech of those who stutter. This study is focused on the lexical domain, namely the lexical density, and lexical diversity that can be considered as the lexical richness. Lexical diversity is usually defined as the range and variety of vocabulary in a language sample. Lexical density provides a measure of the proportion of lexical items (i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives and some adverbs) and function words in a language sample. 
Therefore, this study is aimed at comparing the lexical density and diversity in the narrations of children who stutter (CWS) (aged between 4 to 8 years), and children who do not stutter (CWNS) in the control group. Therefore, it investigates whether children who stutter have limited verbal skills compared to children who do not stutter. Since some theories claim that CWS have poorer language skills, comparing their linguistic performance in different domains to their fluent peers can contribute to the studies in this field through shedding light on the weak and strong points of these children’s language abilities. The sample consists of the narrations of 14 children who stutter (CWS) classified into two age groups: (4-6 and 6-8), and 14 age-matched children who do not stutter (CWNS) as the control group selected through convenience sampling method. They have been asked to narrate a wordless picture book, “Frog where are you?” (Meyer, 1969), and their narrations have been analyzed, and compared according to the lexical density and diversity between children who stutter, and the children in the control group, and also between the two age groups. The percentage of the use of different words in different grammatical classes, i.e. noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and different function words in their narrations was also compared between the groups. 
Lexical diversity was analyzed through computing MSTTR (Mean Segmental Type-Token Ratio) by Word Smith 6. To measure lexical density, Lexical and functional words in the children’s narrations were counted, and classified. The results were compared between the experimental group and control group in different age groups. SPSS 21 was used to test the significance of the differences observed between the groups. The results revealed that CWNS demonstrated more lexical diversity compared to CWS, but the difference was not significant. CWS used more content words and less function words than CWNS in their narrations and the difference is statistically significant. Comparing different grammatical classes showed that CWS narrations contained more nouns than CWNS narrations, whereas CWNS have used more verbs, adjectives and adverbs. However, the difference in the percentage of adverb usage was the only statistically significant item.


1. Introduction
Understanding the relationship between fluency and language skills has been an area of focus in many studies. Many researches has examined whether the language abilities of children who stutter (CWS) are equivalent to those of children who do not (CWNS). Two of these language abilities in lexical domain are lexical diversity and lexical density which are aspects of a greater concept: lexical richness. Lexical diversity is usually defined as the range and variety of vocabulary in a language sample. Lexical density provides a measure of the proportion of lexical items (i.e. nouns, verbs, adjectives and some adverbs) and function words in a language sample. Therefore, the current study is aimed to answer these questions using narrative discourse:

•    How do 4 to 8 year old CWS compare to peers in their lexical diversity?
•    What is the difference between 4 to 8 year old CWS and CWNS in their lexical density?

Based on Demands and capacities theory (Neilson & Neilson, 1987; Starkweather, 1987), that predicts that fluency breaks down when communication demands exceed individual capacities, the hypothesis of this study is vocabulary skills are weaker in CWS compared to peers.

2. Methodology
Participants: participants were14 CWS classified into two age groups: (4-6 and 6-8), and 14 age-matched CWNS as the control group selected through convenience sampling method (gender was not matched). None of the children had suspected any other language disorders and displayed typical social-emotional development, normal hearing ability and no neurological problems, according to speesh therapists reports. Data Collection: Samples were elicited by having children construct a story that correspounded to a wordless picture story, Frog where are you? (Mayer, 1969) with 29 pictures. The reason for chosing narrative task was narration often contains more complex language than conversation because speakers use more adverbial clauses and elaborated noun phrases to tie multiple characters and actions together,so given better samples for lexical density. Data Analysis: Each participant’s narration were audio-recorded and transcribed by researchers. Each word in samples was labled based on whether it is a content or function word. Content words was categorised as noun, verb, adjective and adverb. Function words consisted: prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, articles, object marker, determiners and auxiliary verbs. Number of total words, number and frequency percentage of  total content words, total  function words, nouns, verbs, adjectivse and adverbs were calculated for each particapnt sample. For assessing lexical diversity, number of unique word roots dividing by the number of total words in samples of total narratives of 4-6 and 6-8 year old children in each group (CWS and CWNS) calculated by WordSmith (V6) software. MSTTR (Mean Segmental type-token ratio) algorithm is used in WordSmith which calculates type-token ratio in samples with defference size. SPSS software (V21) and nonparametric tests Mann–Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis used to conduct statistical analyses.

3. Results
The results revealed that CWNS demonstrated more lexical diversity compared to CWS, but the difference was not significant. CWS used more content words and less function words than CWNS in their narrations and the difference is statistically significant. Comparing different grammatical classes showed that CWS narratives contained more nouns than CWNS narrations, whereas CWNS have used more verbs, adjectives and adverbs. However, the difference in the percentage of adverb usage was the only statistically significant item.

4. Conclusion
The findings suggest some subtle level of lexical skills like using divers words in length, phonological or phonetic complexity and other linguistic factors in CWS. It seems their linguistic capacities in producing fluent speech isn't less than communicative demands. Also some theories like EXPLAN predicts function words are more likely to be stuttered in children compared to content words, so less using of function words in CWS can be considered as an avoidance behaviour. As well as eliminating adverbs that are adjunct can be a strategy to avoid words that probably produced stuttered.

 

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Although the hearing skills of children with hearing loss are improved with the help of hearing aids, cochlear implants, and speech therapy, they have difficulties understanding and producing language because of their delayed hearing onset. Considering that these children go to school with their hearing peers, it is needed that their oral language performance be compared with the hearing students. Hence, the present study analyzed and compared the oral language skills of children with hearing loss having hearing aids and cochlea implants, with their hearing counterparts. For this purpose, 39 children aged 6-8 years were examined by the Told-p:3 test. The participants included 16 hearing children, 13 children with cochlear implants, and 10 children with hearing aids. The data were analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests. The results showed no significant difference in syntactic and semantic skills of children having hearing aids and cochlear implants. However, the findings indicated a significant difference between hearing children and children with hearing loss ones having hearing aids and cochlear implants in their semantic and syntactic skills. Therefore, it is needed that children with hearing loss go through verbal-auditory rehabilitation training until they reach the hearing level of hearing children. Neglecting this issue can have detrimental effects on their educational achievements and future job performance.

1.  Introduction

Today, in the Iranian context, children with any kind of physical-motor and hearing disabilities go to public schools to study with other students if they have normal IQs. Although the language skills of hearing-loss children are improved with the help of hearing aids, cochlear implants, and speech therapy, because the onset of hearing in these children is delayed and given that the education of hearing-loss children is done in public schools, it is necessary that the quality of oral language and, consequently, the quality of the written language of deaf children in comparison with their hearing peers be carefully examined. Therefore, in the present study, the quality of oral language in hearing-loss children with their hearing counterparts has been analyzed and compared.

2. Method
In this study, oral language of hearing and hearing loss children was compared from two aspects of listening and speaking. For this purpose, 39 children aged 6-8 years, including 16 hearing children, 13 children with cochlear implants, and 10 children with hearing aids were examined by using the told-p3 test. Deaf children had pre-lingual deafness and had received hearing aids or cochlear aids before the age of two, and have gradually been able to speak with auditory-verbal rehabilitation training. The Told-p3 test was used for data collection. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics for all variables. For inferential statistics, the Kruskal-Wallis test was used to examine the difference between the means in all three groups of children, and then the Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the groups.

3. Results
The gathered data were analyzed using SPSS. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. The results showed no significant difference in syntactic and semantic skills of children having hearing aids and cochlear implants (P.>0.05). However, the findings indicated a significant difference between hearing children and children with hearing loss ones having hearing aids and cochlear implants in their semantic and syntactic skills (P.<0.05). These children had a significantly worse performance than that of hearing children in receiving and understanding the meanings of words and sentences, providing verbal definitions of words and recognizing them, and understanding and applying the forms.

4. Conclusion
The findings of the study showed no significant difference in the quality of oral language between children with cochlear implants and hearing aids. However, there was a significant difference between hearing children and the two groups of hearing-loss children in the quality of oral language in terms of listening and speaking. Accordingly, because deaf children have poorer performance than that of hearing children, not paying enough attention to this issue can have detrimental effects on their educational achievements and future job performance.  Therefore, the policy of teaching hearing-loss children in public schools along with hearing peers needs more reflection by educational policymakers. It is suggested that hearing loss children be helped by different interventions and rehabilitation programs before they start their education with their hearing peers. 
 

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The study of language development and metalinguistic awareness of children is one of the main topics in learning disorders. Some believe that linguistic ability and metalinguistic awareness play an important role in the ability of children with dyslexia to read; Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the linguistic and meta linguistic skills of children with dyslexia and normal children.
For this study, 16 dyslexic students and 32 children of the same age were selected and after performing linguistic and metalinguistic development tests, the results were analyzed by SPSS software.
According to the results of the present study, there is a significant difference between the normal and dyslexic groups in most subtests of language development and phonological awareness tests. Unlike grammatical judgment and lexical awareness subtests, the difference between the two groups is quite significant in the verb tense subtest. In both groups, there is a correlation between some subtests of meta linguistic with some subtests of language development.
Therefore, these findings confirm the hypothesis of interaction between metalinguistic and linguistic development and show that dyslexic children, unlike lexical awareness tasks, have problems in most linguistic and metalinguistic, so it is necessary these skills will be Strengthen.

1. Introduction

The aim of this study was to investigate the linguistic and meta linguistic skills of children with dyslexia and normal children.
Language as the distinguishing feature of mankind from other beings is one of the issues that has been constantly considered by scientists in various sciences. The study of language development and child metalinguistic awareness is one of the main topics in linguistics and psycholinguistics. Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to focus and think on the features of language that are often measured using phonological, lexical, and syntactic awareness tasks (Bialystok & Herman, 1999).
Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to think about the nature and patterns of language. The extent to which children are aware of these rules is called "Metalinguistic awareness." The results of several studies by researchers clearly show that the majority of preschool children are able to make at least some cases of Metalinguistic judgment, and that Metalinguistic performance improves as children grow older. In addition, this ability is completely related to other aspects of language development. Numerous studies (Bialystok, 1991: 2001) have shown that language and Metalinguistic skills play an important role in the ability of these children to read and write, and recognizing their strengths and weaknesses to solve the problems of reading and writing of these children and also is very useful in their curriculum design.
Phonological awareness refers to a person's knowledge of the building blocks of language, which is the basis for learning to read in languages ​​with an alphabetic system. Phonological awareness is a subset of Metalinguistic knowledge. In fact, in order to achieve phonological awareness, the child needs to have a correct understanding and representation of spoken sounds, and this correct representation depends on the child's awareness of the specific coordinates of sounds and the rules governing their order. The ability to correctly understand and represent spoken sounds is called phonological ability, which is the basis of a child's phonological awareness and phonological skills. This ability enables the child to pay attention to language units. Phonological awareness skills develop based on two overlapping general patterns (Chen et al., 2004).
Word definition is a tool for predicting lexical knowledge (Marinellie, 2004: 241). Defining a word requires lexical knowledge and the use of semantic features, cognitive awareness, and Metalinguistic ability (Gutierrez-Cleflen & DeCurtis, 1999: 23). The skill of defining a word is actually related to the abstract relationships between concepts. The definition of a word is part of the cognitive domain of language and the same phrase that is used to describe the meaning of a word (Loria, 1998: 99).

2. Literature Review
In some studies, the phonological skills of children with dyslexia have been investigated. For example, Ashtari and Shirazi (2004) by examining and comparing phonological processing in children with dyslexia showed that there is a significant difference between the two groups and children with dyslexia group is weaker than the normal group in both tests. Shirazi (2012) also by examining the status of phonological processing, central auditory processing and working memory and their contribution to the reading problems of Persian dyslexic students showed that most dyslexics show different combinations of phonological processing, central auditory processing and working memory problems that It can indicate the non-homogeneous nature of dyslexia, but in all these combinations, there is a phonological processing problem, which confirms the central phonological deficit in dyslexia. Mardani et al. (2012) showed that there was a significant difference in the average rhyme detection between the two groups.
Ahadi et al. (2020) also investigated the phonological awareness skills of dyslexic children, and examined their reading of different words and showed a significant difference in reading skills and phonological awareness between children with dyslexia and the normal group of the same age. Ahadi et al. (2019) investigated the relationship between phonological awareness and reading in Persian-speaking children with autism.
Regarding the syntactic awareness of dyslexic children, Casalis et al. (2003) by examining monosyllabic awareness, which is a subset of syntactic awareness in developmental dyslexia, showed that in all tasks, the performance of the dyslexic group was weaker than the age-matched group. The number of syntactic studies in Persian-speaking dyslexic children is small. In this field, only two studies were found, one of which was about syntactic awareness by Nabifar et al. (2014) and the other one was conducted by Ahadi (1400) about examining the relationship between the ability Reading the word and understanding the syntax is the understanding of the text. Nabifar et al investigated and compared syntactic awareness in natural Persian and dyslexic children and found that there is a significant difference between the overall scores of this test in the two groups.
Ahadi (1400) investigated the relationship between word reading skills and syntactic comprehension with text comprehension in dyslexic and natural Persian-speaking children and showed that in both groups, the highest average error is related to reading nonwords and the lowest error rate is related to regular words. In the normal group, there is a negative correlation between reading speed and accuracy with the percentage of errors in reading regular, irregular and non-words, although there is a correlation between the percentage of errors in reading irregular words and reading speed, as well as the correlation between the percentage of errors in reading Vocabulary and reading accuracy are significant. In the dyslexic group, there is a negative and significant correlation between overall reading speed and accuracy and error percentage in reading regular and irregular words, but there is no significant correlation between overall reading accuracy and error percentage in non-word reading; Therefore, the ability to read words in a general form (whole word reading) plays a significant role in the speed and accuracy of reading. However, no significant correlation was found between the syntactic understanding of the studied structures and the understanding of the target text.
Several studies have been conducted on the language skills of children with dyslexia, for example, Man et al. (Mann et al., 1984) showed that children who have difficulty in understanding and repeating complex sentences, use less complex syntactic structures and make syntactic errors. They have more in their speech. Byrne (1996) also showed that dyslexic children have more problems in understanding and repeating related clauses. These studies indicate that dyslexic children have more errors in interpreting unknown sentences than the control group. Respens (2004) also investigated 8-year-old Dutch dyslexic children and found that these children were weaker in identifying subject-verb matching mistakes than children of the same age. In a subsequent study that used similar cases, he observed that dyslexics were weaker than controls in deciding the agreement between subject and verb, so syntactic defects were more common in dyslexics than in normal children. Robertson and Joanisse (2010) also compared the comprehension of spoken sentences in dyslexic children and children with language delay with their age peers. They used a picture-sentence matching task and sentences of two different lengths and two syntactic levels were grammatically The results of their research showed that sentence comprehension decreases with increasing working memory load and this decrease in the dyslexic group.

3. Methodology
In this study, the samples were selected from Persian-speaking children with dyslexia in the second grade of Tehran. Sixteen monolingual Persian children with dyslexia in Tehran, who were studying in the second grade of elementary school and were referred to learning disorders centers due to reading and writing problems, were selected as the experimental group. The reason for choosing the second grade is the completion of alphabet training and the beginning of whole word reading in this grade, in addition, most of the cases diagnosed and referred to learning disorder centers are second grade students. 32 students of the second grade of normal schools in Tehran were also selected as an available sample and examined as a control group (age-matched). Due to the small number of children referred to dyslexia centers and the withdrawal of some of them during the treatment period, sixteen dyslexic students and 32 normal students were selected and examined for comparison. To conduct this study, reading and comprehension tests were used. The average chronological age of the dyslexic group is 31.95 months and their average intelligence is 84.93, which according to the psychologist of the learning disorder center, all of them had normal intelligence.

4. Results
According to the results of the present study, there is a significant difference between the normal and dyslexic groups in all subtests of language development except the subtest of relational vocabulary. There is a significant difference between the two groups in most subtests of phonological awareness. Unlike grammatical judgment and lexical awareness subtests, the difference between the two groups is quite significant in the verb tense subtest. In both groups, there is a correlation between some subtests of meta linguistic with some subtests of language development, but other than the correlation between the subtests of lexical awareness and the oral vocabulary subtest of language development test, in children with dyslexia, there is not meaningful correlation in other subtests.
 

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The study aimed to examine whether and the extent to which children’s self-concept of ability is predicted by their gender, parental and teacher’s beliefs. Next, this study aimed to investigate whether and the extent to which children’s dictation performance in their native language is predicted by their gender, parental and teacher’s beliefs, and self-concept of ability. Finally, the study investigated whether and to what extent children’s reading performance in their native language is predicted by their gender, parental and teacher’s beliefs, and self-concept of ability. A total of 89 Iranian Persian-speaking elementary school fourth-graders, along with their parents and teachers, took part in the study. Five instruments were used in the study: two tests measuring the students’ reading and dictation levels in their native language, one questionnaire assessing the children’s reading and dictation-related self-concept of ability, and two questionnaires assessing the teachers’ and parents’ beliefs regarding reading and dictation level of children. Descriptive statistics, correlation, and multiple regression were run to analyze the data. The findings indicate that children’s self-concept of ability is affected by parental and teacher’s beliefs. Moreover, the results showed that children’s dictation performance is affected by their gender, self-concept of ability, parental and teacher’s beliefs. Finally, the study showed that children’s reading performance is affected by their gender, parental and teacher’s beliefs. Overall, the findings of the present study highlight the importance of children’s self-concept of ability and teachers and parents’ awareness of how their beliefs benefit students’ attainment and development of self-concept of ability.

 

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With the development of the language-based learning approach, language pedagogy takes more advantage of Child and Adolescent literature in teaching to non-native speakers. Besides, language plans were driven to adopt certain expected features; such as modern grammatical and morphological structures, expressing tangible meanings and events of everyday life, being pleasant, equipping learners with eloquence methods, and applying general and universal language pedagogy issues. Since literary texts have various levels and types, language education policymakers need to consider them in designating language plans. With survey methods, this paper illustrates the significance role of Child and Adolescent literature in teaching Persian to non-Persian learners. To achieve this goal, the authors created a questionnaire with eight literary genres in Child and Adolescent literature at three levels of language proficiency. The questionnaire was sent non-randomly to 94 Iranian teachers, experts in teaching Persian to non-Persian speakers and acquaintance with Persian literature. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS 22, calculating one-way Chi-square, applying Friedman and Mann-Whitney statistical test. Data analysis reveals that the relevant indices for beginner levels are either minor or insignificant. However, in the intermediate and advanced levels children’s tales and stories, along with adolescent poetry, are more emphasized.

1. Introduction
Children and adolescent literary texts retain an important role in teaching English as a second/foreign language, as some of the features of this literature have turned it into an indisputable pedagogy tool. Some of the many beneficial characteristics of this literature include the vocabulary and modern language structures which are close to the standard criteria of a language (due to novelty and lack of archaism), expression of tangible concepts and everyday events of the learners’ lives (due to categorization of the audience), introduction of eloquence methods to the learners simply and pleasantly, benefitting from general and global concepts, the ability to adjust the length and difficulty level of these texts to the goals and levels of the learners, and uniformity of the features and elements of this literature with the optimal structures of extensive-reading sources. Although, in many languages and especially in Persian, this literary category consists of many different sub-categories, and the choice of suitable texts requires thorough study and research. Hence, using the survey method and inquiring about the views of expert teachers in teaching Persian to non-native learners, the present study aims to determine the position of each of these sub-categories in teaching Persian to adult non-native learners at different (learning) levels.
The questions that the present study is posing to answer are as follows:
1. From the POV of expert teachers of Persian as a second/foreign language, how important are children and adolescent literature indices in teaching Persian to non-native learners at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels?
2. What is the best order of application of children and adolescent content, based on the degree of importance, in teaching Persian to non-native learners of beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels?
3. How effective is the experience level of teachers in the determination of the importance of children and adolescent literature in teaching Persian to non-native speakers?
2. Methodology
The present study, which has been conducted across the universities and Persian language institutes of the country (Iran), has used the survey method. The study sample consisted of 94 Iranian teachers with experience in the field of teaching Persian as a second/foreign language who were also familiar with Persian literature. They were therefore chosen by a non-random, purposeful method based on accessibility.
The measuring tool of the study is a researcher-made questionnaire which was designed by using a five-point Likert scale based on the importance scale, degree of significance, and accordingly, the significance of applying examples of children and adolescent literature in creating educational material for teaching Persian to non-native speakers of beginner, intermediate and advanced levels and teaching Persian based on children and adolescent literature content from the point of view of expert and skilled Persian teachers.
To examine the validity of the questionnaire, two methods of face validity (views and modifications of experts on the statements of the questionnaire) and construct validity (the number of initial similarities between the statements) were employed. Hence, the face validity of the questionnaire was confirmed according to the opinion of experts, and the construct validity was verified by the minimum number of similarities between statements (0/7) at three levels beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Next, the final questionnaire was distributed online to be answered by the sample population.
To check the reliability of the questionnaire, an initial sample of 30 completed questionnaires was examined as a pre-test. Then, Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the questionnaires were calculated using the obtained data from the initial sample. The amount of Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels were 0,881, 0,943, and 0,933, respectively, which confirms the acceptable reliability of the questionnaire.

3. Summary and Conclusion
Examination of some of the educational material used for teaching Persian to non-natives shows little evidence of using children and adolescent literature, which could be a result of consecutive cognitive issues about examples of this literature. This means that the consciousness of the authors of examined teaching materials about the differences between the dominant narrative in children’s literature and adult literature might have led them to believe that instances of children’s literature cannot present an appropriate learning template for adult Persian learners and, in other words, this literary category might be inappropriate for an adult audience.
Also, research results show that the sample population distinguishes between examples of children and adolescent literature, such as 4 indices of folklore children’s literature including lullabies, nursery rhymes, game songs, and tales, and formally-recognized children and adolescent literature that consists of 4 manifestations including children and adolescent poetry and prose(stories). They identify the former category (folklore) as unimportant, but they permit the use of children’s poetry on an intermediate level, adolescent poetry, and children’s and adolescent prose (stories) on intermediate and advanced levels. Therefore, the aforementioned criteria can be used to compose educational texts for teaching Persian to non-native learners. By correctly choosing the material, the issue of balance between the topics and concepts and the adult audience can be resolved.
 

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The increasing tendency to passive verbs in Persian indicates the importance of paying more attention to it in the study of language acquisition. Considering the age of  24 months and older, as a critical period for the development of syntactic structures in a child’s speech, the current study focused on Persian-speaking children to examine the quality of understanding different patterns of Persian passive and passive-making processes. The data gathered through library studies, field observations, and the quasi-experimental method in some cases, by observing almost 60 children (boys and girls) aged 24-36 months. Data suggest that Semantic features of the verb and the patient thematic role imply significant roles in understanding and producing passive verbs in the early stages of language acquisition. Taking it into account that Farsi has three different patterns for the passive verbs, analyzing the data reveals a hierarchy for different passive structures acquired by children , that is,  a passive formed based on “Adjective+ become-” comes first.The passive structure “past participle+ become-” appears next and  finally, “Noun+ become-”appears in the child speech. The hierarchy regarded both frequency and priority in a child’s speech. There is also evidence for the significant role of context on the frequency of passive verbs formed by Persian children.

1. Introduction
Passive verb, its structure, frequency, and prevalence, as well as the ways in which it is formed, have always been among the topics of interest in linguistic studies. Since the passive is a less frequent pattern and its semantic interpretation is also more difficult, it has received a lot of attention both in the field of language teaching and in the field of language acquisition. The studies that have been carried out on passive construction show that children produce this form later than their active counterparts. However, no comprehensive study has been carried out on the acquisition and comprehension of passive construction and the factors that influence this process in Persian. Conducting such research is particularly important due to the existence of different patterns for making passive in Persian compared to a language like English.
Research Questions
The main research questions can be formulated as follows:
At what age do passive verbs appear in the speech of Persian-speaking children? What is the priority of the emergence of each passive pattern in Persian-speaking children? And can the emergence and understanding of passive sentences at different ages be explained by the influence of factors such as the type of verb and the semantic features of its complement?

2. Literature Review
There are two main views on the time of the appearance of passive in English-speaking children's speech: the first view estimates the age of acquisition and understanding of the passive in English-speaking children at around age 3, and the second view is related to studies claiming that English-speaking children learn the passive later and express it in their speech from around age 5.
Tomasello et al. (1998) point out that the complete production of passive sentences in the speech of an English-speaking child appears at age 4, while Budwing (1990) claims that the passive is visible in the speech of a three-year-old child. On the other hand, studies such as Maratsos et al. (1985), instead of paying general attention to the learning time of the passive construction, focus on the effect of verb type on the understanding and use of passive sentences and claim that children understand the passive motion verbs earlier while understanding the sensory passive verbs occur later. Crain et al. (1978), on the other hand, emphasize the factor of exposure and context in children's learning age of the passive and believe that by increasing children's exposure to the passive verbs, they will be able to learn this construction at a younger age. Similarly, by conducting several studies on the learning time of the passive form in English-speaking children, Messenger et al. (2011) concluded that the ability to understand and learn the passive construction in children is influenced by the amount of motivation, repetition, and practice in constructing passive sentences regardless of the type of the verb used. Cychosz and Salazar (2016) deal with the emergence of each of two patterns of passive in Spanish-speaking children aged 3 to 6 years.

3. Methodology
 Based on the stratified sampling method, 60 children (boys and girls)  were selected from 5 different kindergartens in Birjand city regardless of their gender, family status, cultural and social class, etc.  After extracting the names of children aged 24 to 36 months, they were divided into three age groups of four months interval: group A (24-28 months ), group B (28-32 months ) and group C ( 32-36 months). Each group consisted of about 20 children, and finally the results for each group were examined and analyzed separately. All the participants in this research were children who have passed the stage of single-word speech and could  at least express two-word expressions and some of them were able to make complete sentences.
Based on Messenger et al. (2010), at the first phase, data were extracted using picture association method. Each participant narrated a story according to the selected and controlled images of a story book. At this stage, every participant was put in the position of producing an unknown sentence and his answer was recorded regardless of whether it was correct or incorrect.
In the second step, according to Messenger et al.(2011) and with the aim of investigating the occurrence of passive construction in children's speech, the participants and their teachers formed friendly groups of 10 to 15 people to give instructions by means of the toys they had at their disposal. The duration of this group activity was between 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the age group of the participants.

4. Results
The results suggest that most of the changes and the necessary preparations for the development of passive construction in the speech of Persian-speaking children take place between 24 and 36 months. To answer the first and second questions of the research, the analysis of the results shows that Persian-speaking children at the age of 24 to 28 months, that is, at the end of the two-word speech stage, have only a limited understanding of passive sentences in such a way that only 5% of the total participants in this age group have responded correctly to passive sentences with the reversible verb "to pull". In line with Burr (Bever, 1970), Slobin (1996), Turner and Rommetveit (1967), and Harris (Harris, 1976), the results of the present research, consider the "reversibility" of the verb and the semantic feature  "+animate", of the patient of the active verb as effective factors in understanding the passive sentences for children aged 24 to 28 months. After this stage and when children enter the period of 28 to 32 months, the child's performance in producing passive sentences with three types of Farsi passive constructions improves. In response to the second question of the research, the results of the current study show the precedence of the appearance of the passives with the pattern "simple adjective/attributive + becoming" over the other two constructions. However, at the end of this age period, the Persian-speaking child can understand all three types of Persian passive constructions, including "simple adjective/attributive + becoming". Past participle + becoming" and "noun + becoming".In response to the third research question, in line with Messenger et al. (2011), Cychosz & Salazar (2016) and Abbot-Smith et al. Smith et al. (2017) on English-speaking and Spanish-speaking children, data show that children in the age group of 32 to 36 months can increase the number of passive sentences they produce in different contexts while understanding a variety of passive structures in the speech of their teachers or parents. Also, children in this age group are sensitive to the components of the passive verb and can both produce and comprehend the passive form of compound verbs.