Journal of Semnan University of Medical Sciences
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Outline
Adaptation and Feasibility of the POMAS and POMplexity Protocols for the Analysis of Spelling Errors in Persian-Speaking Students: A Preliminary Study
Authors
Abstract
Background: Students with learning disabilities constitute a large proportion of children receiving speech-language pathology services. Access to a standardized protocol for analyzing spelling errors is essential for the assessment of these children, enabling speech-language pathologists to design interventions based on accurate and systematic analyses.
Objective: This study aimed to adapt and evaluate the feasibility of two spelling error analysis protocols—Phonological, Orthographic, and Morphological Assessment of Spelling (POMAS) and Phonological, Orthographic, and Morphological Severity/Complexity (POMplexity)—for analyzing spelling errors in Persian-speaking elementary school students.
Materials and Methods: Both the POMAS and POMplexity protocols were adapted for Persian writing through a forward–backward translation process, face and content validity assessment, and review by an expert panel. The applicability of the adapted protocols in both research and clinical settings was then examined by analyzing the spelling errors of six third-grade Persian-speaking elementary school students (three girls and three boys) from Semnan, Iran.
Results: Owing to substantial differences between Persian and English in their phonological, orthographic, and morphological systems, the original English protocols required several modifications. These included the addition and definition of error categories related to letter dots, the ascending stroke (Sarkesh), letter clusters, and the zero-width non-joiner (half-space). The adapted protocols were fully applicable to the analysis of spelling errors produced by Persian-speaking children. The content validity ratio (CVR) and content validity index (CVI), as evaluated by the expert panel, were both 100%. Among the six participating children, the mean ± standard deviation was 11.17 ± 7.23 for simple errors, 4.50 ± 2.43 for combined errors, and 1.23 ± 0.57 for error severity.
Conclusion: The POMAS and POMplexity protocols were successfully adapted for the analysis of spelling errors in Persian-speaking children and demonstrated satisfactory applicability for third-grade students. However, generalization of these findings to students in other grade levels requires further investigation. Future studies employing these protocols will provide additional evidence regarding their clinical utility and potential limitations.
References
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Copyright
© 2026, Author(s). This open-access article is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which allows for unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.
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