A New Persian Version of Language Assessment, Remediation, and Screening Procedure (P-LARSP)

Objectives: In 1998, the Persian form of Language Assessment, Remediation, & Screening Procedure (P-LARSP) was introduced. However, this adapted version remained on library shelves and was not used by Iranian speech and language pathologists (SLPs). The present study aimed to explore the barriers to using P-LARSP, resolve the possible issues, and provide a preliminary grammatical sketch from typical children aged 2-5. Methods: The study started with two surveys in two different populations to find the possible barriers and then, continued with the cross-cultural adaptation of the LARSP through international guidelines (forward and backward translations, cognitive interviewing, and pretesting). Finally, by the new P-LARSP, 120 language samples obtained from children (aged 2-5) in a free-play context were analyzed and data were processed in SPSS software, version 21. Results: Our surveys showed that Iranian SLPs had little familiarity with the P-LARSP, and they found it unclear, and difficult to understand the framework. While most of the participants recognized the P-LARSP as a relevant framework to analyze language samples, few numbers of participants used the P-LARSP with clinical or research aims. Through cross-cultural adaptation, a simple, clear, relevant, comprehensive, and applicable Persian profile along with a published manual was obtained and introduced to the SLPs through social media, workshops, and national congresses. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of 120 language samples showed grammatical structures have significant changes by age in terms of numbers and varieties of clauses, phrases, inflectional morphemes, and general syntactic indices. Discussion: The present study revealed why the P-LARSP remained unknown. We removed the barriers by introducing a new version of P-LARSP fully in Persian and increasing its simplicity, clarity, and understandability with a proper manual. Introducing the new version through proper channels to the target population was another taken step to increase the familiarity of the Iranian SLPs. In addition, the preliminary data indicated that the new P-LARSP with its manual is applicable to the language samples taken from typically developing children.