Handwritten and Typed Discourse in People With Aphasia: Reference Data for Sequential Picture Description and Comparison of Performance Across Modality.

Purpose: Writing can be completed by hand or by typing. Increasingly, functional and social activities are completed in the virtual domain, which often requires discourse level writing. Yet, there is a shortage of research on discourse writing in aphasia.

Pilot Results for ECoLoGiC-Tx: A New Conversation-Level Intervention Improving Language in People With Moderate to Severe Aphasia.

Purpose: This study reports pilot data for a novel intervention, ECoLoGiC-Tx, delivered to four people with moderate to severe aphasia. ECoLoGiC-Tx addresses language and communication in unstructured, participant-led conversation. The speech-language pathologist (SLP) uses a framework to choose turns that facilitate a social interaction.

Analyzing Language in the Picnic Scene Picture and in Conversation: The Type of Discourse Sample We Choose Influences Findings in People With Aphasia.

Purpose: People with aphasia express that improved conversational discourse is a primary rehabilitation goal. Discourse is usually assessed using monologue, such as a picture description task, but research shows that language in monologue varies from language in everyday conversation. Consequently, we investigated the relationship of language in unstructured conversation and in the picnic scene picture because it is a part of the most often used aphasia battery (Western Aphasia Battery-Revised) and thus is frequently used to inform therapy.

Two-Year Longitudinal Evaluation of Community Aphasia Center Participation on Linguistic, Functional Communication, and Quality of Life Measures Across People With a Range of Aphasia Presentations.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate potential changes on a hierarchy of language tasks and measures of functional communication and quality of life in a group of people with aphasia (PWA) who attended a community aphasia center for 2 years. A secondary purpose was to determine whether there were any predictors of change.

Method: Twenty-seven PWA who attended Brooks Rehabilitation Aphasia Center (BRAC) were evaluated on an aphasia battery, confrontation naming, and structured discourse in addition to completing self-reported measures of functional communication and quality of life at three time points: before attending BRAC and after 1 ( = 27) and 2 ( = 20) years of BRAC participation.

Toward Empowering Conversational Agency in Aphasia: Understanding Mechanisms of Topic Initiation in People With and Without Aphasia.

Purpose: This study examined topic initiation (TI) in conversations involving people with aphasia (PWA), matched people without aphasia (M-PWoA), and speech-language pathologists who were their conversation partners (SLP-Ps). For each speaker type, we analyzed patterns of distribution of typical mechanisms of TI and patterns of simultaneous use of multiple TI mechanisms. Lastly, we examined associations between use of simultaneous TI mechanisms and communicative success.

Assessing Language in Unstructured Conversation in People With Aphasia: Methods, Psychometric Integrity, Normative Data, and Comparison to a Structured Narrative Task.

Purpose This study evaluated interrater reliability (IRR) and test-retest stability (TRTS) of seven linguistic measures (percent correct information units, relevance, subject-verb-[object], complete utterance, grammaticality, referential cohesion, global coherence), and communicative success in unstructured conversation and in a story narrative monologue (SNM) in persons with aphasia (PWAs) and matched participants without aphasia (M-PWoAs). Furthermore, the relationship of language in unstructured conversation and SNM was investigated for these measures. Methods Twenty PWAs and 20 M-PWoAs participated in two unstructured conversations on different days with different speech-language pathologists trained as social conversation partners.

Effects of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment on Sound-Level and Speech Production Errors in Individuals With Aphasia and Acquired Apraxia of Speech.

Purpose This retrospective pilot study investigated whether sound-level and speech production errors decreased in confrontation naming following Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) for four participants with acquired apraxia of speech (A-AOS) and aphasia for whom lexical retrieval was previously reported. Specifically, we investigated a potential increase in correct number of syllables per word and posttreatment changes across three domains of speech: segmental production, fluency, and prosody. It was hypothesized that treatment shown to increase lexical retrieval in persons with aphasia and A-AOS could potentially facilitate a reduction in sound-level and speech production errors consistent with dual diagnoses of A-AOS and aphasia.

Measuring Global Coherence in People With Aphasia During Unstructured Conversation.

Purpose Global coherence is an essential macrolinguistic discourse skill that speakers use to formulate discourse to convey meaning with maintenance to a topic. When global coherence is poor, the listener's ability to understand how the discourse makes sense as a whole is diminished. Measures exist to evaluate global coherence in people with aphasia during monologue tasks (e.

Evaluating Change in the Conversation of a Person With Mild Aphasia After Attentive Reading With Constrained Summarization-Written Treatment.

Purpose The purpose of this project was to evaluate the effect of a discourse-level treatment, Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization-Written (ARCS-W), on conversational discourse. ARCS-W aims to improve spoken and written output by addressing the cognitive-linguistic requirements of discourse production through constrained summarization of novel material. Method This is an experimentally controlled case study with a single participant, Bill.

"By the Way"… How People With Aphasia and Their Communication Partners Initiate New Topics of Conversation.

Purpose The ability to initiate new topics of conversation is a basic skill integral to communicative independence and agency that is susceptible to breakdown in aphasia (Barnes, Candlin, & Ferguson, 2013), yet this discourse skill has received little research attention. Healthy adults (HAs) follow 3 established patterns of structural organization to cue the conversation partner when an utterance is intended to initiate a new topic (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973; Svennevig, 1999). In addition, speakers have the option to use these mechanisms of topic initiation (TI) individually or in conjunction with one another.

Revisiting the Correct Information Unit: Measuring Informativeness in Unstructured Conversations in People With Aphasia.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine whether the correct information unit (CIU) can be reliably applied to unstructured conversational discourse in people with aphasia (PWA). The CIU was developed by Nicholas and Brookshire (1993) to measure word-level informativeness in structured monologue-level discourse and is widely used by clinicians and researchers for this purpose. A case study (Oelschlaeger & Thorne, 1999) investigating the use of the CIU in conversation has suggested potential issues with interrater reliability (IRR), which has discouraged application of the CIU to this discourse context.

Conversation in Aphasia Across Communication Partners: Exploring Stability of Microlinguistic Measures and Communicative Success.

Purpose The aim of this study was to determine if people with aphasia demonstrate differences in microlinguistic skills and communicative success in unstructured, nontherapeutic conversations with a home communication partner (Home-P) as compared to a speech-language pathologist communication partner (SLP-P). Method Eight persons with aphasia participated in 2 unstructured, nontherapeutic 15-minute conversations, 1 each with an unfamiliar SLP-P and a Home-P. Utterance-level analysis evaluated communicative success.

Attentive Reading With Constrained Summarization Adapted to Address Written Discourse in People With Mild Aphasia.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the preliminary efficacy of Attentive Reading and Constrained Summarization-Written (ARCS-W) in people with mild aphasia. ARCS-W adapts an existing treatment, ARCS (Rogalski & Edmonds, 2008), to address discourse level writing in mild aphasia. ARCS-W focuses on the cognitive and linguistic skills required for discourse production.

Evaluation of Language Predictors of Main Concept Production in Spanish/English Bilingual Discourse Using Nicholas and Brookshire Stimuli.

Purpose: A conceptual framework of bilingual aphasia assessment requires an understanding of the variables that influence discourse in bilingual speakers. This study aimed to determine predictors of main concept (MC) production, a measure of discourse completeness, as well as the effect of language dominance on MCs.

Method: The Nicholas and Brookshire (1993) picture stimuli were used to elicit English and Spanish discourse in 83 young bilinguals.

Comparison of Australian specialty nurse standards with registered nurse standards.

Aim: This study aimed to determine whether registered nurse Australian specialty competency standards identified unique capabilities of nursing practice.

Background: Use of the term specialist in nursing commenced early in the twentieth century with the growth and diversification of postgraduate nursing education. Courses in speciality nursing were associated with the development of specialty competency standards in Australia.

What can speech production errors tell us about cross-linguistic processing in bilingual aphasia? Evidence from four English/Afrikaans bilingual individuals with aphasia.

Introduction: The aim of this study is contribute to clinical practice of bilinguals around the globe, as well as to add to our understanding of bilingual aphasia processing, by analysing confrontation naming data from four Afrikaans/English bilingual individuals with acquired aphasia due to a left hemisphere stroke.

Methods: This is a case series analysis of four Afrikaans/English bilingual aphasic individuals following a left cerebrovascular accident. Error analysis of confrontation naming data in both languages was performed.

Effect of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) in persons with aphasia: extension and replication of previous findings.

Purpose: Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) is an aphasia treatment that targets verbs (e.g., measure) and their related thematic roles (e.

Research applications for an Object and Action Naming Battery to assess naming skills in adult Spanish-English bilingual speakers.

Virtually no valid materials are available to evaluate confrontation naming in Spanish-English bilingual adults in the U.S. In a recent study, a large group of young Spanish-English bilingual adults were evaluated on An Object and Action Naming Battery (Edmonds & Donovan in Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 55:359-381, 2012).

Correlates and cross-linguistic comparisons of informativeness and efficiency on Nicholas and Brookshire discourse stimuli in Spanish/English bilingual adults.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine (a) correlates of informativeness and efficiency in discourse and (b) potential cross-linguistic and stimulus type (picture vs. nonpicture) differences in measures of informativeness and efficiency in Spanish/English bilingual adults in the United States.

Method: Eighty-eight Spanish/English young bilingual adults who self-reported being functional in both languages completed the discourse tasks from Nicholas and Brookshire (1993).

Activating situation schemas: the effects of multiple thematic roles on related verbs in a continuous priming paradigm.

Extensive evidence has shown that presentation of a word (target) following a related word (prime) results in faster reaction times compared to unrelated words. Two primes preceding a target have been used to examine the effects of multiple influences on a target. Several studies have observed greater, or additive, priming effects of multiple related primes compared to single related primes.

Item-level psychometrics and predictors of performance for Spanish/English bilingual speakers on an object and action naming battery.

Purpose: There is a pressing need for psychometrically sound naming materials for Spanish/English bilingual adults. To address this need, in this study the authors examined the psychometric properties of An Object and Action Naming Battery (An O&A Battery; Druks & Masterson, 2000) in bilingual speakers.

Method: Ninety-one Spanish/English bilinguals named O&A Battery items in English and Spanish.

Effect of verb network strengthening treatment in moderate-to-severe aphasia.

Purpose: This Phase II treatment study examined the effect of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) on individuals with moderate-to-severe aphasia. Research questions addressed (a) pre- to posttreatment changes and pretreatment to treatment phase changes on probe sentences containing trained verbs (e.g.

Effect of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) on Lexical Retrieval of Content Words in Sentences in Persons with Aphasia.

BACKGROUND: Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) is a semantic treatment that aims to improve lexical retrieval of content words in sentence context by promoting systematic retrieval of verbs (e.g., measure) and their thematic roles (i.

Effect of semantic naming treatment on crosslinguistic generalization in bilingual aphasia.

Purpose: The effect of semantic naming treatment on crosslinguistic generalization was investigated in 3 participants with English-Spanish bilingual aphasia.

Method: A single-subject experimental designed was used. Participants received semantic treatment to improve naming of English or Spanish items, while generalization was tested to untrained semantically related items in the trained language and translations of the trained and untrained items in the untrained language.