Syntactic Complexity as a Linguistic Marker to Differentiate Mild Cognitive Impairment From Normal Aging.

Purpose In this study, we sought to identify critical linguistic markers that can differentiate sentence processing of individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from the sentence processing of normal-aging populations by manipulating sentences' linguistic complexity. We investigated whether passive sentences, as linguistically complex structures, can serve as linguistic markers that can contribute to diagnoses that distinguish MCI from normal aging. Method In total, 52 participants, including 26 adults with amnestic MCI and 26 cognitively unimpaired adults, participated in the study.

Effects of age, working memory, and word order on passive-sentence comprehension: evidence from a verb-final language.

Background: The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of working-memory (WM) capacity on age-related changes in abilities to comprehend passive sentences when the word order was systematically manipulated.

Methods: A total of 134 individuals participated in the study. The sentence-comprehension task consisted of the canonical and non-canonical word-order conditions.

The Effects of Sentence Repetition-Based Working Memory Treatment on Sentence Comprehension Abilities in Individuals With Aphasia.

Purpose: This study investigated whether sentence repetition-based working-memory (SR-WM) treatment increased sentence-repetition abilities and the treatment effects generalized to sentence-comprehension abilities, WM-span tasks, and general language-assessment tasks.

Method: Six individuals with aphasia participated in the study. The treatment consisted of 12 sessions of approximately 1 hr per day, 3 times per week.