Connected Language Performance in Neurotypical and Persons with Aphasia: Use of the Brazilian-Portuguese Story Retell Procedure.

Introduction: It is important to analyze the micro- and macrostructure of connected language production across languages in neurotypical and impaired speakers such as people with aphasia (PWA). However, the validity, reliability, sensitivity, or specificity of the available Brazilian-Portuguese connected language production batteries remains untested.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to provide a preliminary assessment of the translated Brazilian-Portuguese Story Retell Procedure (SRP-BP) in PWA and neurotypical control participants (NCPs) and investigate whether the SRP can serve as a measure of overall communication impairment in PWA.

Reading and listening comprehension in Cantonese-speaking people with right hemisphere versus left hemisphere brain damage.

The problem in language comprehension in people with right hemisphere damage (RHD) is more equivocal than people with left hemisphere damage. This study explores the reading and listening comprehension of Cantonese-speaking individuals with RHD, left hemisphere damage, and neurotypical healthy controls using the Cantonese Computerized Revised Token Test (CRTT-Cantonese) adapted from the English CRTT. Eighteen native Cantonese-speaking individuals with RHD, 32 individuals with left hemisphere damage and aphasia (PWA), and 42 healthy controls participated in this study.

Need for cognition is associated with the interaction of reward and task-load on effort: A verification and extension study.

Here, we work to provide nuance around the assumption that people will work for rewards. We examine whether individuals' inherent tendency to mobilize cognitive effort (need for cognition, NFC) moderates this effect. We re-analyzed our existing data to verify an effect reported by Sandra and Otto (2018) regarding the association between NFC and reward-induced cognitive effort expenditure, using a more ecological cognitive task design and adding a psychophysiological measure of effort.

Development of the English Listening and Reading Computerized Revised Token Test Into Cantonese: Validity, Reliability, and Sensitivity/Specificity in People With Aphasia and Healthy Controls.

Purpose This study reports the psychometric development of the Cantonese versions of the English Computerized Revised Token Test (CRTT) for persons with aphasia (PWAs) and healthy controls (HCs). Method The English CRTT was translated into standard Chinese for the Reading-Word Fade version (CRTT-R--Cantonese) and into formal Cantonese for the Listening version (CRTT-L-Cantonese). Thirty-two adult native Cantonese PWAs and 42 HCs were tested on both versions of CRTT-Cantonese tests and on the Cantonese Aphasia Battery to measure the construct and concurrent validity of CRTT-Cantonese tests.

The role of reward and task demand in value-based strategic allocation of auditory comprehension effort.

Objectives: Listeners who fail to optimize their allocation of effort during auditory comprehension tasks can experience from compromised performance, fatigue and stress, which might result in reduced engagement in social communication activities. Strategically allocating effort based on costs and perceived benefits are commonly observed in the research of effortful physical and visual behaviors. Whether people manage their effort in a similar manner in audition remains unclear.

Audiological Assessment of Word Recognition Skills in Persons With Aphasia.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of persons with aphasia, with and without hearing loss, to complete a commonly used open-set word recognition test that requires a verbal response. Furthermore, phonotactic probabilities and neighborhood densities of word recognition errors were assessed to explore potential underlying linguistic complexities that might differentially influence performance among groups.

Method: Four groups of adult participants were tested: participants with no brain injury with normal hearing, participants with no brain injury with hearing loss, participants with brain injury with aphasia and normal hearing, and participants with brain injury with aphasia and hearing loss.

The Nature of Error Consistency in Individuals With Acquired Apraxia of Speech and Aphasia.

Purpose: The primary characteristics used to define acquired apraxia of speech (AOS) have evolved to better reflect a disorder of motor planning/programming. However, there is debate regarding the feature of relatively consistent error location and type.

Method: Ten individuals with acquired AOS and aphasia and 11 individuals with aphasia without AOS participated in this study.

International consultation on long-term global health research priorities, research capacity and research uptake in developing countries.

Background: In recognition of the need for long-term planning for global health research, and to inform future global health research priorities, the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DfID) carried out a public consultation between May and June 2015. The consultation aimed to elicit views on the (1) the long-term future global health research priorities; (2) areas likely to be less important over time; (3) how to improve research uptake in low-income countries; and (4) how to build research capacity in low-income countries.

Methods: An online consultation was used to survey a wide range of participants on global health research priorities.

Update on Didactic and Clinical Education in Fluency Disorders: 2013-2014.

Purpose: This study surveyed didactic and clinical education in fluency disorders at undergraduate and graduate institutions in the United States that provide education in speech-language pathology to determine whether a previously observed reduction in requirements has continued since prior surveys (Yaruss, 1999; Yaruss & Quesal, 2002).

Method: The study involved a detailed questionnaire that was sent to 282 communication science and disorders departments. Questions examined didactic and clinical education, as well as faculty knowledge about fluency disorders.

The effect of speaking rate on serial-order sound-level errors in normal healthy controls and persons with aphasia.

Background: Although many speech errors can be generated at either a linguistic or motoric level of production, phonetically well-formed sound-level serial-order errors are generally assumed to result from disruption of phonologic encoding (PE) processes. An influential model of PE (Dell, 1986; Dell, Burger & Svec, 1997) predicts that speaking rate should affect the relative proportion of these serial-order sound errors (anticipations, perseverations, exchanges). These predictions have been extended to, and have special relevance for persons with aphasia (PWA) because of the increased frequency with which speech errors occur and because their localization within the functional linguistic architecture may help in diagnosis and treatment.

A predictive model for diagnosing stroke-related apraxia of speech.

Diagnosis of the speech motor planning/programming disorder, apraxia of speech (AOS), has proven challenging, largely due to its common co-occurrence with the language-based impairment of aphasia. Currently, diagnosis is based on perceptually identifying and rating the severity of several speech features. It is not known whether all, or a subset of the features, are required for a positive diagnosis.

Treatment for Acquired Apraxia of Speech: A Systematic Review of Intervention Research Between 2004 and 2012.

Objectives: The aim was for the appointed committee of the Academy of Neurological Communication Disorders and Sciences to conduct a systematic review of published intervention studies of acquired apraxia of speech (AOS), updating the previous committee's review article from 2006.

Method: A systematic search of 11 databases identified 215 articles, with 26 meeting inclusion criteria of (a) stating intention to measure effects of treatment on AOS and (b) data representing treatment effects for at least 1 individual stated to have AOS.

Results: All studies involved within-participant experimental designs, with sample sizes of 1 to 44 (median = 1).

Intentional and Reactive Inhibition During Spoken-Word Stroop Task Performance in People With Aphasia.

Purpose: The integrity of selective attention in people with aphasia (PWA) is currently unknown. Selective attention is essential for everyday communication, and inhibition is an important part of selective attention. This study explored components of inhibition-both intentional and reactive inhibition-during spoken-word production in PWA and in controls who were neurologically healthy (HC).

Reliability and validity of the computerized Revised Token Test: comparison of reading and listening versions in persons with and without aphasia.

Purpose: This study assessed the reliability and validity of intermodality associations and differences in persons with aphasia (PWA) and healthy controls (HC) on a computerized listening and 3 reading versions of the Revised Token Test (RTT; McNeil & Prescott, 1978).

Method: Thirty PWA and 30 HC completed the test versions, including a complete replication. Reading versions varied according to stimulus presentation method: (a) full-sentence presentation, (b) self-paced word-by-word full-sentence construction, and (c) self-paced word-by-word presentation with each word removed with the onset of the next word.

Magnetoencephalographic virtual recording: a novel diagnostic tool for concussion.

Object: Heightened recognition of the prevalence and significance of head injury in sports and in combat veterans has brought increased attention to the physiological and behavioral consequences of concussion. Current clinical practice is in part dependent on patient self-report as the basis for medical decisions and treatment. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) shows promise in the assessment of the pathophysiological derangements in concussion.

Effects of divided attention on swallowing in persons with idiopathic Parkinson's disease.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether attentional resources are involved in swallowing in persons with idiopathic Parkinson's disease, and if so, in which phase(s) of swallowing. The approach involved a dual-task, reaction time (RT) paradigm using ten participants with Parkinson's disease. Single-task baseline measures were obtained for durations of the anticipatory phase and oropharyngeal phase of swallowing and RTs were obtained for nonword auditory stimuli.

Effects of divided attention on swallowing in healthy participants.

Swallowing impairments are treated mostly behaviorally. It is requisite to understand the relationship of cognition, specifically attention, with swallowing since so many swallowing impairments occur concomitantly with cognitive disorders. This study examined the hypothesis that attentional resources are required during swallowing.

Models of attention and dual-task performance as explanatory constructs in aphasia.

Aphasia has traditionally been viewed as a loss or impairment of language. However, evidence is presented suggesting that language mechanisms are fundamentally preserved and that aphasic language behaviors are instead due to impairments of cognitive processes supporting their construction. These processes may be understood as a linguistically specialized attentional system that is vulnerable to competition from other processing domains.

Auditory performance characteristics of the Computerized Revised Token Test (CRTT).

Purpose: To assess the Computerized Revised Token Test (CRTT) performance of individuals with normal hearing under several intensity conditions and under several spectral and temporal perturbation conditions.

Method: Sixty normal-hearing listeners were randomly assigned to 1 of 3 groups. Group 1 provided performance-intensity information about CRTT performance using uncompressed acoustic stimuli.

The Burden of Stroke Scale (BOSS) provided valid, reliable, and responsive score estimates of functioning and well-being during the first year of recovery from stroke.

Objectives: To examine the reliability, validity, and responsiveness of the Burden of Stroke Scale (BOSS).

Study Design: A prospective cohort of stroke survivors were assessed at 3 (T1, T2), 6 (T3), and 12 (T4) months post onset (MPO) of stroke. Test-retest reliability was evaluated by calculating intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) between T1 and T2 scale scores.

Rasch modeling of revised token test performance: validity and sensitivity to change.

The purpose of this research was to examine the validity of the 55-item Revised Token Test (RTT) and to compare traditional and Rasch-based scores in their ability to detect group differences and change over time. The 55-item RTT was administered to 108 left- and right-hemisphere stroke survivors, and the data were submitted to Rasch analysis. Traditional and Rasch-based scores for a subsample of 60 stroke survivors were submitted to analyses of variance with group (left hemisphere with aphasia vs.

An application of Rasch analysis to the measurement of communicative functioning.

Purpose: The purposes of this investigation were to examine the construct dimensionality and range of ability effectively measured by 28 assessment items obtained from 3 different patient-reported scales of communicative functioning, and to provide a demonstration of how the Rasch approach to measurement may contribute to the definition of latent constructs and the development of instruments to measure them.

Method: Item responses obtained from 421 stroke survivors with and without communication disorders were examined using the Rasch partial credit model. The dimensionality of the item pool was evaluated by (a) examining correlations of Rasch person ability scores obtained separately from each of the 3 scales, (b) iteratively excluding items exceeding mean square model fit criteria, and (c) using principal-components analysis of Rasch model residuals.

The Burden of Stroke Scale (BOSS) provides valid and reliable score estimates of functioning and well-being in stroke survivors with and without communication disorders.

Background And Objective: This study describes the conceptual foundation and psychometric properties of the Burden of Stroke Scale (BOSS), a patient-reported health status assessment designed to quantify the physical, cognitive, and psychological burden of stroke.

Methods: Qualitative research methods were used to develop a 112-item pilot version of the instrument. The pilot version was administered to healthy controls (n=251) and stroke survivors with (n=135) and without (n=146) communication disorders on a single occasion for the purposes of reducing the global item pool, describing the resulting scale properties, examining the dimensionality of the burden of stroke construct, and examining the known-groups validity of the instrument.