Showing papers on "Aphasia published in 1997"

A neural dissociation within language: Evidence that the mental dictionary is part of declarative memory, and that grammatical rules are processed by the procedural system

Abstract: Language comprises a lexicon for storing words and a grammar for generating rule-governed forms. Evidence is presented that the lexicon is part of a temporal-parietalhnedial-temporal “declarative memory” system and that granlmatical rules are processed by a frontamasal-ganglia “procedural” system. Patients produced past tenses of regular and novel verbs (looked and plagged), which require an -ed-suffixation rule, and irregular verbs (dug), which are retrieved from memory. Word-finding difficulties in posterior aphasia, and the general declarative memory impairment in Alzheimer's disease, led to more errors with irregular than regular and novel verbs. Grammatical difficulties in anterior aphasia, and the general impairment of procedures in Parkinson's disease, led to the opposite pattern. In contrast to the Parkinson's patients, who showed sup pressed motor activity and rule use, Huntington's disease patients showed excess motor activity and rule use, underscoring a role for the basal ganglia in grammatical processing.

The Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM): Normative data from cognitively intact and cognitively impaired individuals.

Abstract: Four experiments were undertaken to validate the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM). In the first 3 experiments, the TOMM was administered to 475 community-dwelling individuals and 161 neurologically impaired patients (traumatic brain injury, aphasia, cognitive impairment, and dementia). Both clinica

The temporal variant of frontotemporal dementia.

Abstract: Frontotemporal dementia is a dementia syndrome with diverse clinical characteristics. Based upon clinical parameters and single photon emission computed tomography, we identified 47 frontotemporal dementia subjects. In 10 of these 47 the primary site of brain dysfunction was anterior temporal and orbital-frontal with other frontal regions relatively spared. In this temporal lobe variant (TLV) of frontotemporal dementia, five of the subjects had more severe left-sided, and five had more right-sided, hypoperfusion. The clinical, neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric features of predominantly left-sided (LTLV) and right-sided (RTLV) TLV subjects are discussed and contrasted with more frontal presentations of frontotemporal dementia. In LTLV, aphasia was usually the first and most severe clinical abnormality RTLV patients presented with behavioural disorders characterized by irritability, impulsiveness, bizarre alterations in dress, limited and fixed ideas, decreased facial expression and increased visual alertness. These findings suggest that: (i) frontotemporal dementia is clinically heterogeneous with bitemporal and inferior frontal lobe dysfunction contributing to the clinical presentation; (ii) behavioural disturbance and aphasia are the most prominent features of predominantly temporal subtypes of frontotemporal dementia; (iii) the right and left anterior temporal regions may mediate different behavioural functions. The results of this study suggests that TLV offers a valuable source of information concerning the behavioural disorders seen with combined anterior temporal and inferior frontal lobe dysfunction.

Language and Auditory-verbal Short-term Memory Impairments: Evidence for Common Underlying Processes

Abstract: We report an investigation of the short-term memory STM impairments of 15 aphasic subjects whose language profiles varied with respect to the relative involvement of lexical-semantic and phonological processes. On the hypothesis that STM is dependent on capacities intrinsic to language processing, repetition span should vary in conjunction with lexical-semantic and phonological impairment: Specifically, when lexical-semantic processing is impaired, phonological abilities provide primary support to span performance; when phonological processing is impaired, there should be increased reliance on lexical-semantic information. Support for this hypothesis was provided by correlating measures of semantic and phonological abilities with effects of imageability and frequency on repetition performance, and with serial position effects in retrieval of phonemes within a word and words within a string. The data are discussed within the framework of an interactive activation model of language processing.

From first words to grammar in children with focal brain injury

Abstract: The effects of focal brain injury were investigated in the first stages of language development, during the passage from first words to grammar. Parent report, free‐speech data, or both are reported for 53 infants and preschool children between 10 and 44 months of age. All children had suffered a single, unilateral brain injury to the left or right hemisphere, incurred before 6 months of age (usually in the pre‐ or perinatal period). This is the period in which one would expect to see maximal plasticity, but it is also the period in which the initial specializations of particular cortical regions ought to be most evident. In direct contradiction of hypotheses based on the adult aphasia literature, results from 10 to 17 months suggest that children with right‐hemisphere injuries are at greater risk for delays in word comprehension and in the gestures that normally precede and accompany language onset. Although there were no differences between left‐ and right‐hemisphere injury per se on expressive language...

Onset of speech after left hemispherectomy in a nine-year-old boy

Abstract: Case Alex, with Sturge-Weber Syndrome affecting the left hemisphere, failed to develop speech throughout early boyhood, and his comprehension of single words and simple commands remained stagnant at an age equivalent of 3-4 years. But then, following left hemidecortication at age 8.5 years and withdrawal of anticonvulsants when he was more than 9 years old, Alex suddenly began to acquire speech and language. He also showed an unusual degree of residual motor capacity on his right side. Alex's remarkable progress in learning speech and language, and the development of his other cognitive abilities, were measured periodically from the age of 9 to 15 years. His most recent scores on tests of receptive and expressive language place him at an age equivalent of 8-10 years. Comparison with the level of function attained in these domains by nine other left hemispherectomized patients with early onset of disease and comparable IQ (range, 40-68) but with early development of speech and language, suggests that, surprisingly, Alex has suffered no permanent disadvantage from his protracted period of mutism and severely limited comprehension. Although the findings in Alex, as in other left-hemispherectomized patients, indicate define limits to the cognitive and linguistic capacity of the isolated right hemisphere, Alex's achievements appear to challenge the widely held view that early childhood is a particularly critical period for acquisition of speech and language or any of their selective aspects, including phonology, grammar, prosody and semantics. It is concluded that clearly articulated, well structured, and appropriate language can be acquired for the first time as late as age 9 years with the right hemisphere alone.

Communication partners: Enhancing participation in life and communication for adults with aphasia in natural settings

Abstract: Communication partners is a novel aphasia treatment plan whose aim is to restore a sense of purpose, direction, and control to daily life for both patient and caregiver. Treatment involves the participation of a community volunteer who, once paired with an aphasic adult, acts as a liaison in bridging clinical and real-life pursuits. Initially, treatment pairs are taught how to interact freely and effectively. Once comfortable in each other's company these partners embark on activities of the patient's choosing at home or in the community. Results from 10 treated pairs failed to yield significant differences on the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Exmamination, Communication Abilities in Daily Living, or the Affect Balance Scale. However, all participants, i.e. patients, caregivers, and communication partners, noted statistically significant gains in the aphasic adult's well-being and communication on two investigator-constructed questionnaires. Other informal measures also supported the use of this trea...

Fronto-Temporal Lobar Degeneration: Fronto-Temporal Dementia, Progressive Aphasia, Semantic Dementia.

Abstract: Fronto-Temporal Lobar Degeneration: Fronto-Temporal Dementia, Progressive Aphasia, Semantic Dementia. Edited by: j s snowden, david neary, and d m mann. (Pp 227; £55.00). Published by Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh 1996. ISBN 0443047650. The three editors of this book have played a central part in the renaissance of interest in the clinical, neuropsychological, and neuropathological aspects of non-Alzheimer dementias. This book is based on their truly remarkable experience of some 200 patients with lobar atrophy studied over the past decade, 40 of whom have reached postmortem. It represents, therefore, an unequalled source of information and is essential reading for all …

Talking about aphasia : living with loss of language after stroke

Abstract: What is aphasia "is frightened, is frightened" - the early experience of stroke and aphasia "the thing is what job?" - work, leisure and aphasia "can I get a word in edgeways?" - family, friends and aphasia "lost in the undertow" - health, social care and voluntary services for people with aphasia "everything seems a secret" - information and aphasia "doing the inside work" - the meaning of aphasia "they cannot see it or how will they know?" - aphasia and disability "I'm fed up of saying I'm sorry" - learning to live with aphasia. Appendix 1 About the project.

Aphasia And Related Neurogenic Language Disorders

Abstract: This revised edition offers practically applicable introductions to various aphasias and related disorders. Pathophysiology, differentiating features, methods of evaluation and specific methods of treatment are discussed. The book has been updated to reflect changes in directions and scope.

Spoken sentence comprehension in aphasia: Event-related potential evidence for a lexical integration deficit

Abstract: In this study the N400 component of the event-related potential was used to investigate spoken sentence understanding in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics The aim of the study was to determine whether spoken sentence comprehension problems in these patients might result from a deficit in the on-line integration of lexical information Subjects listened to sentences spoken at a normal rate In half of these sentences, the meaning of the final word of the sentence matched the semantic specifications of the preceding sentence context In the other half of the sentences, the sentence-final word was anomalous with respect to the preceding sentence context The N400 was measured to the sentence-final words in both conditions The results for the aphasic patients (n = 14) were analyzed according to the severity of their comprehension deficit and compared to a group of 12 neurologically unimpaired age-matched controls, as well as a group of 6 nonaphasic patients with a lesion in the right hemisphere The nonaphasic brain damaged patients and the aphasic patients with a light comprehension deficit (high comprehenders, n = 7) showed an N400 effect that was comparable to that of the neurologically unimpaired subjects In the aphasic patients with a moderate to severe comprehension deficit (low comprehenders, n = 7), a reduction and delay of the N400 effect was obtained In addition, the P300 component was measured in a classical oddball paradigm, in which subjects were asked to count infrequent low tones in a random series of high and low tones No correlation was found between the occurrence of N400 and P300 effects, indicating that changes in the N400 results were related to the patients' language deficit Overall, the pattern of results was compatible with the idea that aphasic patients with moderate to severe comprehension problems are impaired in the integration of lexical information into a higher order representation of the preceding sentence context

Auditory processing in individuals with mild aphasia: A study of resource allocation

Abstract: This study examined the effects of lesion location (frontal vs. posterior) and nature of distraction (nonverbal vs. verbal secondary, competing task) on mildly aphasic individuals' performances of listening tasks that required semantic judgments and lexical decisions under isolation, focused attention, and divided attention conditions. Despite comparable accuracy among all groups during isolation conditions, the aphasic groups responded less accurately and more slowly than the normal control group during focused and divided attention conditions. Generally, the two aphasic groups performed similarly, quantitatively and qualitatively. Demographic characteristics such as time post stroke did not correlate with performance decrements. Independent of group, all individuals showed greater disruption of auditory processing skills when the secondary task was verbal rather than nonverbal. Within a limited-capacity model of attention, the results suggest that aphasic individuals display impairments of attention and resource allocation and that these impairments negatively interact with their auditory processing abilities.

Anomia : neuroanatomical and cognitive correlates

Abstract: Introduction: H. Goodglass and A. Wingfield, Word-Finding Deficits in Aphasia: Clinical Symptomatology and Brain-Behavior Relationships. Anatomical and Theoretical Considerations in Anomia: B. Gordon, Models of Naming. D. Tranel, A.R. Damasio, and A.R. Damasio, On the Neurology of Naming. Dissociations and Other Naming Phenomena: R. De Bleser, Modality-Specific Dissociations. C. Semenza, Proper-Name-Specific Aphasias. Life Span Perspectives on Anomia: Clinical and Therapeutic Considerations: P. Menyuk, Naming Disorders in Childhood. M. Nicholas, C. Barth, L.K. Obler, R. Au, and M.L. Albert, Naming in Normal Aging and Dementia of the Alzheimer's Type. N. Helm-Estabrooks, Treatment of Aphasis Naming Problems. H. Goodglass and A. Wingfield, Summary of the Volume. Author Index. Summary Index.

Patterns of language decline in non-fluent primary progressive aphasia

Abstract: Language samples collected yearly for up to 11 years post-onset of symptoms from four subjects presenting with non-fluent primary progressive aphasia (PPA) were analyzed and compared with samples collected from both non-brain-damaged subjects and those with agrammatic Broca's aphasia resulting from a single left-hemisphere stroke. Extensive analysis of lexical and morphosyntactic variables in these samples revealed two patterns of expressive language decline in the PPA subjects - one resembling that seen in our agrammatic aphasic subjects - i.e. impaired production of closed-class elements and loss of sentential structures governed by these elements-and the other characterized by advancing word-retrieval difficulties. These data are relevant for patient-management purposes and, in addition, they provide information relevant to language representation and organization.

Spoken Word Production and Its Breakdown In Aphasia

Abstract: Part I: Models of Spoken Word Production. Introduction. Lexical Representation and Access. Phonological Encoding: Slots and Fillers. More Phonological Encoding: Motor Control and Monitoring. Part II: The Breakdown of Spoken Word Production in Aphasia. Introduction. Semantic Deficits and Semantic Errors. Deficits of Lexical Retrieval. Phonological Errors: Deficits of Phonological Encoding and Beyond.

Reformulating the definition of compensatory strategies in aphasia

Abstract: Based on authentic data from an ethnographic study of compensatory strategies in adults with aphasia, an operational definition of compensatory strategies has been formulated. By employing seven characteristics derived from the data, this definition provides a perspective on compensation that is different from previous definitions and examples. Several assessment and treatment implications are discussed.

[Dissociations between music and language functions after cerebral resection: A new case of amusia without aphasia].

Abstract: We present the neuropsychological study of a patient, I.R., who sustained bilateral damage to the temporal lobes and to the right frontal lobe as a result of successive brain surgeries that occurred ten years earlier. The patient is 40 years old and right-handed; she had no special training in music or in language, representing, therefore, the large majority of listeners. Her performance is compared to that of four neurologically intact subjects who are closely matched in terms of education, sex and age. In the present study, we report I.R.'s performance on various tests aiming at assessing her general cognitive functioning with a particular focus on auditory aspects. The results show that, despite extensive damage to her auditory cortex, I.R.'s speech abilities are essentially intact (see Tables 1 and 2). The only impairments that are detected in the language domain are related to a short-term memory deficit, to some abnormal sensitivity to retroactive interference in long-term memory (see Table 3) and to articulation. These difficulties do not, however, affect linguistic communication, which is obviously undisturbed I.R. is not aphasic). Similarly, I.R. does not experience any difficulty in the recognition and memorization of familiar sounds such as animal cries, traffic noises and the like (see Tables 5 and 7). In contrast, I.R. is severely impaired in most musical abilities: She can no longer discriminate nor identify melodies that were once highly familiar to her; she can no longer discriminate nor memorize novel melodies (see Table 4). Her pattern of musical losses is compatible with a basic and severe perceptual deficit that compromises access to and registration in memory systems. The observation that the auditory impairment affects music and spares language and environmental sounds refers to a neuropsychological condition that is known as music agnosia. I.R. represents, to our knowledge, the fourth case of music agnosia available in the literature (Peretz et al., 1994; Griffiths et al., 1997). The existence of such cases suggests that music processing is not mediated by a general-purpose auditory architecture but by specialized cortical subsystems. Not only does I.R. suffer from music agnosia, but she is also impaired in the discrimination and recognition of musical instruments and of human voices (see Table 5). These latter two deficits probably do not result from the music agnosic condition. Rather, they seem to reflect damage to adjacent brain areas that are specialized in timbre processing (see Peretz. et al., 1994, for the relevant discussion). It is also worth mentioning that I.R. appears to be impaired in musical expressive abilities as well: I.R. can no longer sing a single note. Thus, her losses are rather general in the musical domain, hence justifying the classification of her case as amusia. Cases of amusia without aphasia are relatively frequent in the neuropsychological literature. However, all of these reported cases are anecdotal. Thus, in the present study, special focus is given to the measurement and direct comparison of performance in the language and music domain; in both domains, task characteristics and materials were as similar as possible. To this aim, the lyrics and the tune of the same popular song excerpts were used. The musical and the spoken parts were presented separately in a primed familiarity decision task and in a memory recognition task. In both situations, I.R. performs at or close to chance when she has to deal with music, whereas she recognizes easily and performs normally on the spoken material (see Tables 6 and 7). These results clearly argue for the autonomy of music and language in the processing of auditory information.