Factors that predict treatment outcomes in aphasia

We have several other ongoing projects examining the nature of language processing and deficits in aphasia. These studies span a broad range of topics including examining the nature of category learning in individuals with aphasia and semantic processing deficits in individuals with aphasia.

STUDY 1

Sofia M. Vallila-Rohter and Swathi Kiran, Non-linguistic learning and aphasia: Evidence from a paired associate and feedback-based task, Neuropsychologia,
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.10.024

Th

STUDY 2

Sandberg, C., Sebastian, R., & Kiran, S. (2012). Typicality mediates performance during category verification in both ad-hoc and well-defined categories. Journal of Communication Disorders, 45(2), 69-83. doi: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2011.12.004.

The typicality effect is present in neurologically intact populations for natural, ad-hoc, and well-defined categories. Although sparse, there is evidence of typicality effects in persons with chronic stroke aphasia for natural and ad-hoc categories. However, it is unknown exactly what influences the typicality effect in this population.

The present study explores the possible contributors to the typicality effect in persons with aphasia by analyzing and comparing data from both normal and language-disordered populations, from persons with aphasia with more semantic impairment versus those with less semantic impairment, and from two types of categories with very different boundary structure (ad-hoc vs. well-defined).

A total of 40 neurologically healthy adults (20 older, 20 younger) and 35 persons with aphasia (20 LSI (less-semantically impaired) patients, 15 MSI (more-semantically impaired) patients) participated in the study. Participants completed one of two tasks: either category verification for ad-hoc categories or category verification for well-defined categories.

Neurologically healthy participants showed typicality effects for both ad-hoc and well-defined categories. MSI patients showed a typicality effect for well-defined categories, but not for ad-hoc categories, whereas LSI patients showed a typicality effect for ad-hoc categories, but not for well-defined categories.
Conclusions: These results suggest that the degree of semantic impairment mediates the typicality effect in persons with aphasia depending on the structure of the category.

STUDY 3

Villard, S. & Kiran, S. (2015). Between-session intra-individual variability in sustained, selective, and integrational attention in aphasia. Neuropsychologia, 66, 204-212. Villard & Kiran 2015

一个