TY - JOUR A1 - Martinez-Ferreiro, Silvia A1 - Reyes, Andres Felipe A1 - Bastiaanse, Roelien T1 - Overcoming discourse-linking difficulties in aphasia BT - the case of clitic pronouns JF - Clinical linguistics & phonetics N2 - The present study aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the impact of discourse-linking deficits on the performance of individuals with aphasia by providing new data from a set of rarely investigated constructions: sentences in which a clitic pronoun coexists alongside with the full DP it agrees with. To do so, we use data of individuals with non-fluent aphasias who need to overcome the difficulties in direct object (accusative) clitic production. This results in overproduction of non-target clitic right dislocations (RDs) and clitic doubling (CD). Data from 15 individual’s native speakers of Spanish and Catalan are discussed. Data complement the results of previous investigations on discourse-linking effects in these languages, allowing the interpretation of results across constructions. KW - Clitic pronouns KW - discourse KW - aphasia KW - Spanish KW - Catalan Y1 - 0207 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2017.1308015 SN - 0269-9206 SN - 1464-5076 VL - 31 IS - 6 SP - 459 EP - 477 PB - Taylor & Francis Group CY - Philadelphia ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kong, Anthony Pak-Hin A1 - Linnik, Anastasia A1 - Law, Sam-Po A1 - Shum, Waisa Wai-Man T1 - Measuring discourse coherence in anomic aphasia using Rhetorical Structure Theory JF - International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology N2 - Purpose: The existing body of work regarding discourse coherence in aphasia has provided mixed results, leaving the question of coherence being impaired or intact as a result of brain injury unanswered. In this study, discourse coherence in non-brain-damaged (NBD) speakers and speakers with anomic aphasia was investigated quantitatively and qualitatively. Method: Fifteen native speakers of Cantonese with anomic aphasia and 15 NBD participants produced 60 language samples. Elicitation tasks included story-telling induced by a picture series and a procedural description. The samples were annotated for discourse structure in the framework of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) in order to analyse a number of structural parameters. After that 20 naive listeners rated coherence of each sample. Result: Disordered discourse was rated as significantly less coherent. The NBD group demonstrated a higher production fluency than the participants with aphasia and used a richer set of semantic relations to create discourse, particularly in the description of settings, expression of causality, and extent of elaboration. People with aphasia also tended to omit essential information content. Conclusion: Reduced essential information content, lower degree of elaboration, and a larger amount of structural disruptions may have contributed to the reduced overall discourse coherence in speakers with anomic aphasia. KW - discourse analysis KW - aphasia KW - speech-language pathology Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/17549507.2017.1293158 SN - 1754-9507 SN - 1754-9515 VL - 20 IS - 4 SP - 406 EP - 421 PB - Routledge CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fyndanis, Valantis A1 - Themistocleous, Charalambos T1 - Are there prototypical associations between time frames and aspectual values? BT - Evidence from Greek aphasia and healthy ageing JF - Clinical linguistics & phonetics N2 - Time reference, which has been found to be selectively impaired in agrammatic aphasia, is often interwoven with grammatical aspect. A recent study on Russian aphasia found that time reference and aspect interact: Past reference was less impaired when tested within a perfective aspect context (compared to when tested within an imperfective aspect context), and reference to the non-past was less impaired when tested within an imperfective aspect context (compared to when tested within a perfective aspect context). To explain this pattern, the authors argued that there are prototypical associations between time frames and aspectual values. The present study explores the relationship between time reference and aspect focusing on Greek aphasia and healthy ageing and using a sentence completion task that crosses time reference and aspect. The findings do not support prototypical matches between different time frames and aspectual values. Building on relevant studies, we propose that patterns of performance of healthy or language-impaired speakers on constrained tasks tapping different combinations of time frames with aspectual values should reflect the relative frequency of these combinations in a given language. The analysis of the results at the individual level revealed a double dissociation, which indicates that a given time frame-aspectual value combination may be relatively easy to process for some persons with aphasia but demanding for some others. KW - Time reference/tense KW - aspect KW - aphasia KW - prototypical associations KW - Greek Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/02699206.2018.1480657 SN - 0269-9206 SN - 1464-5076 VL - 33 IS - 1-2 SP - 191 EP - 217 PB - Taylor & Francis Group CY - Philadelphia ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Linnik, Anastasia A1 - Bastiaanse, Roelien A1 - Höhle, Barbara T1 - Discourse production in aphasia: a current review of theoretical and methodological challenges JF - Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal N2 - Background: Discourse abilities play an important role in the assessment, classification, and therapy outcome evaluation of people with aphasia. Discourse production in aphasia has been studied quite extensively in the last 15 years. Nevertheless, many questions still do not have definitive answers.Aims: The aim of this review is to present the current situation in the research on a number of crucial aspects of discourse production in aphasia, focusing on methodological progress and related challenges. This review continues the discussion of the core themes in the field, aiming to render it as up-to-date as possible.Main Contribution: The review focuses on a number of unexplored theoretical issues, specifically, the interface between micro- and macrolinguistic abilities, and the relationship between linguistic competence and communicative success in aphasia. The emphasis on theoretical challenges, along with the thorough discussion of methodological problems in the field, makes this review a starting point and a comprehensive information source for researchers planning to address language production in people with aphasia.Conclusion: Although the picture is not yet complete, recent advancements lead to a better understanding of the processes involved in aphasic discourse production. Different approaches provide insights into the complex multifaceted nature of discourse-level phenomena; however, methodological issues, including low comparability, substantially slow down the progress in the field. KW - Discourse production KW - aphasia Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2015.1113489 SN - 0268-7038 SN - 1464-5041 VL - 30 SP - 765 EP - 800 PB - Copernicus CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bastiaanse, Roelien A1 - Wieling, Martijn A1 - Wolthuis, Nienke T1 - The role of frequency in the retrieval of nouns and verbs in aphasia JF - Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal N2 - Background: Word retrieval in aphasia involves different levels of processinglemma retrieval, grammatical encoding, lexeme retrieval, and phonological encodingbefore articulation can be programmed and executed. Several grammatical, semantic, lexical, and phonological characteristics, such as word class, age of acquisition, imageability, and word frequency influence the degree of success in word retrieval. It is, however, not yet clear how these factors interact. The current study focuses on the retrieval of nouns and verbs in isolation and in sentence context and evaluates the impact of the mentioned factors on the performance of a group of 54 aphasic speakers.Aims: The main aim is to measure the effect of word frequency on the retrieval of nouns and verb by disentangling the influence of word class, age of acquisition, imageability, and lemma and lexeme frequencies on word retrieval in aphasia.Methods & Procedures: Four tests for retrieval of nouns, verbs in isolation, and infinitives and finite verbs were administered to 54 aphasic speakers. The influence of lemma and lexeme frequency, Age of Acquisition on the word retrieval abilities was analysed.Outcomes and Results: Word class, age of acquisition, and imageability play a significant role in the retrieval of nouns and verbs: nouns are easier than verbs; the earlier a word has been learned and the more concrete it is, the easier it is to retrieve. When performance is controlled for these factors, lemma frequency turns out to play a minor role: only in object naming does it affect word retrieval: the higher the lemma frequency of a noun, the easier it is to access. Such an effect does not exist for verbs, neither on an action-naming test, nor when verbs have to be retrieved in sentence context. Lexeme frequency was not found to be a better predictor than lemma frequency in predicting word retrieval in aphasia.Conclusions: Word retrieval in aphasia is influenced by grammatical, semantic, and lexical factors. Word frequency only plays a minor role: it affects the retrieval of nouns, but not of verbs. KW - Word frequency KW - age of acquisition KW - imageability KW - verbs KW - nouns KW - aphasia Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2015.1100709 SN - 0268-7038 SN - 1464-5041 VL - 30 SP - 1221 EP - 1239 PB - Karger CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Groenewold, Rimke A1 - Bastiaanse, Roelien A1 - Nickels, Lyndsey A1 - Wieling, Martijn A1 - Huiskes, Mike T1 - The differential effects of direct and indirect speech on discourse comprehension in Dutch and English listeners with and without aphasia JF - Aphasiology : an international, interdisciplinary journal N2 - Background: In a previous study, we demonstrated that narratives containing direct speech constructions were easier to comprehend than narratives with indirect speech constructions for Dutch listeners with and without aphasia. There were two possible explanations for this finding: either that direct speech has increased liveliness compared to indirect speech or that direct speech is less grammatically complex. Aims: This study aimed to provide further insight into the mechanisms underlying the differences between direct and indirect speech constructions on discourse comprehension in Dutch. More specifically, it aimed to examine the role that the grammatical characteristics of direct and indirect speech play in discourse comprehension success by comparing English- and Dutch-speaking individuals with and without aphasia. Methods & Procedures: An English version of the Dutch iPad-based Direct Speech Comprehension (DISCO) test was developed. Twenty individuals with aphasia and 19 neurologically healthy control participants were presented with spoken narratives that contained either direct or indirect speech constructions. Their performance was compared to that of the participants of the Dutch DISCO study. To assess the effect of language on performance, we conducted a single analysis in which we contrasted the English data with the Dutch data. Outcomes & Results: Control participants performed better than participants with aphasia; English-speaking participants performed worse than Dutch participants, and narratives containing direct speech were easier to comprehend than narratives with indirect speech constructions. However, a subsequent analysis including only individuals with aphasia showed that the Dutch group differed from the English-speaking group: direct speech was only beneficial for the Dutch participants with aphasia. Conclusions: This study expanded on the findings of a previous study, in which a facilitating effect of direct over indirect speech constructions for audiovisual discourse comprehension was found. The differential effects of direct speech on comprehension in Dutch and English showed that rather than one or other explanation being "correct", both liveliness and grammatical characteristics play a role in discourse comprehension success. Grammatically less complex constructions (direct speech) are not necessarily always easier to comprehend than grammatically more complex constructions (indirect speech) for individuals with aphasia. In our study grammatically simple constructions introduced grammatical ambiguity and therefore possible interpretation difficulties for the English-speaking participants with aphasia. KW - discourse comprehension KW - direct speech KW - indirect speech KW - aphasia Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2014.977217 SN - 0268-7038 SN - 1464-5041 VL - 29 IS - 6 SP - 685 EP - 704 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lorenz, Antje A1 - Heide, Judith A1 - Burchert, Frank T1 - Compound naming in aphasia: effects of complexity, part of speech, and semantic transparency JF - Language, cognition and neuroscience KW - compound production KW - morphology KW - decomposition KW - lemma KW - part of speech KW - semantic transparency KW - aphasia KW - word-finding difficulties Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/01690965.2013.766357 SN - 2327-3798 SN - 2327-3801 VL - 29 IS - 1 SP - 88 EP - 106 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tsegaye, Mulugeta Tarekegne A1 - De Bleser, Ria A1 - Iribarren, Carolina T1 - The effect of literacy on oral language processing implications for aphasia tests JF - Clinical linguistics & phonetics N2 - Most studies investigating the impact of literacy on oral language processing have shown that literacy provides phonological awareness skills in the processing of oral language. The implications of these results on aphasia tests could be significant and pose questions on the adequacy of such tools for testing non-literate individuals. Aiming at examining the impact of literacy on oral language processing and its implication on aphasia tests, this study tested 12 non-literate and 12 literate individuals with a modified Amharic version of the Bilingual Aphasia Test (Paradis and Amberber, 1991, Bilingual Aphasia Test. Amharic version. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.). The problems of phonological awareness skills in oral language processing in non-literates are substantiated. In addition, compared with literate participants, non-literate individuals demonstrated difficulties in the word/sentence-picture matching tasks. This study has also revealed that the Amharic version of the Bilingual Aphasia Test may be viable for testing Amharic-speaking non-literate individuals with aphasia when modifications are incorporated. KW - aphasia KW - Bilingual Aphasia Test KW - literacy KW - Amharic KW - phonological awareness KW - word/sentence-picture matching Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3109/02699206.2011.567348 SN - 0269-9206 VL - 25 IS - 6-7 SP - 628 EP - 639 PB - Taylor & Francis Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heidler, Maria-Dorothea T1 - Clock test in patients with severe aphasia JF - Nervenheilkunde : Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Fortbildung N2 - Objective: How do patients with severe aphasia perform in the clock test? Methods:Ten patients with severe aphasia performed the clock test in two modes: copy a given clock (copy condition) and set a clock by drawing the clock hands, where a given digital display (11:10) should be transformed into an analogue display (time setting condition). Results: Not a single patient with severe aphasia was able to master any mode of the clock test. Both copy and time conditions were severely impaired by executive, conceptual, motoric visuospatial and apraxic disorders - impairments of language system were only one of numerous influencing factors. Conclusions and clinical relevance:The clock test measures and requires for its execution so many different cognitive, motoric and perceptual functions that it cannot adequately differentiate between patients with severe aphasia and other severe brain damage. KW - Clock test KW - aphasia KW - apraxia KW - executive functions Y1 - 2012 SN - 0722-1541 VL - 31 IS - 11 SP - 837 EP - 843 PB - Schattauer CY - Stuttgart ER -