Semantic impairment in aphasia: A problem of control?

Purpose: The relationship between cognitive processes and language ability in aphasia has recently gained increasing attention, with some authors suggesting that control impairments may underlie difficulties with semantic tasks in aphasia. This paper aims to present an overview of the current research on the involvement of cognitive processes in semantic processing tasks and discuss the proposed relationship between cognitive control and semantic processing in aphasia.

Method: The role of cognitive processes in semantic processing tasks commonly used in the aphasiology literature is discussed and two theoretical approaches to semantic processing that contribute to the understanding of the nature of semantic breakdown in aphasia are outlined.

Verbal fluency in Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment in individuals with low educational level and its relationship with reading and writing habits.

Unlabelled: Verbal fluency (VF) has contributed to building cognitive maps as well as differentiating healthy populations from those with dementia.

Objectives: To compare the performance of healthy controls and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) in two semantic VF tasks (animals/clothes) and a phonemic VF task (letter P). Also, to analyze the relationship between the frequency of reading and writing habits (FRWH) and VF in individuals with low educational level.

Naming and verbal learning in adults with Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment and in healthy aging, with low educational levels.

Language assessment seems to be an effective tool to differentiate healthy and cognitively impaired aging groups. This article discusses the impact of educational level on a naming task, on a verbal learning with semantic cues task and on the MMSE in healthy aging adults at three educational levels (very low, low and high) as well as comparing two clinical groups of very low (0-3 years) and low education (4-7 years) patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) with healthy controls. The participants comprised 101 healthy controls, 17 patients with MCI and 19 with AD.