Self-Improved Language Production in Nonfluent Aphasia Through Automated Recursive Self-Feedback.

Background: Persons with nonfluent aphasia (PWNA) use feedback from external agents (e.g., speech-language pathologists) and self-feedback to improve their language production.

Recursive Self-feedback Improved Speech Fluency in Two Patients with Chronic Nonfluent Aphasia.

Background: Previous studies have demonstrated that people with nonfluent aphasia (PWNA) improve their language production after repeating personalized scripts, modeled by speech-language pathologists (SLPs). If PWNA could improve by using their own self-feedback, relying less on external feedback, barriers to aphasia treatment, such as a dearth of clinicians and mobility issues, can be overcome. Here we examine whether PWNA improve their language production through an automated procedure that exposes them to playbacks of their own speech, which are updated recursively, without any feedback from SLPs.

Using a translanguaging framework to examine language production in a trilingual person with aphasia.

When language abilities in aphasia are assessed in clinical and research settings, the standard practice is to examine each language of a multilingual person separately. But many multilingual individuals, with and without aphasia, mix their languages regularly when they communicate with other speakers who share their languages. We applied a novel approach to scoring language production of a multilingual person with aphasia.

Cross-language generalization of language treatment in multilingual people with post-stroke aphasia: A meta-analysis.

Studies on the efficacy of language treatment for multilingual people with post-stroke aphasia and its generalization to untreated languages have produced mixed results. We conducted a systematic review and a meta-analysis to examine within- and cross-language treatment effects and the variables that affect them. We searched PubMed, PsycINFO, CINAHL, and Google Scholar (February 2020; January 2023), identifying 40 studies reporting on 1573 effect sizes from 85 individuals.

Rehabilitating an attrited language in a bilingual person with aphasia.

Language difficulties can arise from reduced exposure to any given language (e.g. attrition) or after brain damage (e.

Developing a Framework for a Remote, International Research Collaboration Among Graduate Students: Lessons Learned During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Purpose: This article describes a framework for developing international research collaborations among graduate students. Central to this framework is the utility of institutional and association-based academic mentorship programs in developing collaborative partnerships. We illustrate how the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's Mentoring Academic Research Careers program served as a vehicle for fostering remote collaboration and provided training experiences for graduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Aphasia in Multilingual Patients.

Purpose Of Review: We summarize recent published work concerning assessment and treatment of aphasia in bilingual and multilingual people and review current related models of treatment outcomes. As well, we discuss studies that address the recently debated topic of cognitive processes in bilingual individuals with aphasia, with a focus on the effects of bilingualism on aphasia recovery and its potential protective effects.

Recent Findings: Providing assessment and treatment tools that best serve multilingual individuals with aphasia and unpacking the variables and mechanisms that underlie response to treatment have emerged as goals of several recent studies.

Variables and Mechanisms Affecting Response to Language Treatment in Multilingual People with Aphasia.

Background: Despite substantial literature exploring language treatment effects in multilingual people with aphasia (PWA), inconsistent results reported across studies make it difficult to draw firm conclusions.

Methods: We highlight and illustrate variables that have been implicated in affecting cross-language treatment effects in multilingual PWA.

Main Contribution: We argue that opposing effects of activation and inhibition across languages, influenced by pertinent variables, such as age of language acquisition, patterns of language use, and treatment-related factors, contribute to the complex picture that has emerged from current studies of treatment in multilingual PWA.

Language mixing patterns in a bilingual individual with non-fluent aphasia.

Background: Language mixing in bilingual speakers with aphasia has been reported in a number of research studies, but the reasons for the mixing and whether it reflects typical or atypical behaviour has been a matter of debate.

Aims: In this study we tested the hypothesis that language mixing behaviour in bilingual aphasia reflects lexical retrieval difficulty.

Methods & Procedures: We recruited a Hebrew-English bilingual participant with mild-moderate non-fluent agrammatic aphasia and assessed his languages at three timepoints.

What Influences Language Impairment in Bilingual Aphasia? A Meta-Analytic Review.

Patterns of language impairment in multilingual speakers with post-stroke aphasia are diverse: in some cases the language deficits are parallel, that is, all languages are impaired relatively equally, whereas in other cases deficits are differential, that is, one language is more impaired than the other(s). This diversity stems from the intricate structure of the multilingual language system, which is shaped by a complex interplay of influencing factors, such as age of language acquisition, frequency of language use, premorbid proficiency, and linguistic similarity between one's languages. Previous theoretical reviews and empirical studies shed some light on these factors, however no clear answers have been provided.

Variation in language mixing in multilingual aphasia.

Mixing languages within a sentence or a conversation is a common practice among many speakers of multiple languages. Language mixing found in multilingual speakers with aphasia has been suggested to reflect deficits associated with the brain lesion. In this paper, we examine language mixing behaviour in multilingual people with aphasia to test the hypothesis that the use of language mixing reflects a communicative strategy.

The role of language proficiency and linguistic distance in cross-linguistic treatment effects in aphasia.

Current findings from intervention in bilingual aphasia are inconclusive regarding the extent to which levels of language proficiency and degree of linguistic distance between treated and non-treated languages influence cross-language generalisation and changes in levels of language activation and inhibition following treatment. In this study, we enrolled a 65-year-old multilingual speaker with aphasia and administered treatment in his L1, Dutch. We assessed pre- and post-treatment performance for seven of his languages, five of high proficiency and two of lower proficiency.

Response Time Inconsistencies in Object and Action Naming in Anomic Aphasia.

Purpose: The effect of repeated naming on both object and action picture naming in individuals with anomic aphasia is explored. We asked whether repeatedly naming the same items leads to improved accuracy and reduced response latency.

Method: Ten individuals with anomic aphasia and 6 healthy adults, 3 young and 3 old, named a set of 27 object pictures and a set of 27 action pictures presented 1 at a time on a computer screen.

Do age-related word retrieval difficulties appear (or disappear) in connected speech?

We conducted a comprehensive literature review of studies of word retrieval in connected speech in healthy aging and reviewed relevant aphasia research that could shed light on the aging literature. Four main hypotheses guided the review: (1) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to reduced output in connected speech. (2) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to a more limited lexical variety in connected speech.

Word retrieval in picture descriptions produced by individuals with Alzheimer's disease.

What can tests of single-word production tell us about word retrieval in connected speech? We examined this question in 20 people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and in 20 cognitively intact individuals. All participants completed tasks of picture naming and semantic fluency and provided connected speech through picture descriptions. Picture descriptions were analyzed for total word output, percentages of content words, percentages of nouns, and percentages of pronouns out of all words, type-token ratio of all words and type-token ratio of nouns alone, mean frequency of all words and mean frequency of nouns alone, and mean word length.

How older adults use cognition in sentence-final word recognition.

This study examined the effects of executive control and working memory on older adults' sentence-final word recognition. The question we addressed was the importance of executive functions to this process and how it is modulated by the predictability of the speech material. To this end, we tested 173 neurologically intact adult native English speakers aged 55-84 years.

The effect of plausibility on sentence comprehension among older adults and its relation to cognitive functions.

Unlabelled: BACKGROUND/STUDY CONTEXT: Older adults show age-related decline in complex-sentence comprehension. This has been attributed to a decrease in cognitive abilities that may support language processing, such as working memory (e.g.

Language dominance and inhibition abilities in bilingual older adults.

This study aimed to examine the so-called bilingual advantage in older adults' performance in three cognitive domains and to identify whether language use and bilingual type (dominant vs. balanced) predicted performance. The participants were 106 Spanish-English bilinguals ranging in age from 50 years to 84 years.

Using informative verbal exchanges to promote verb retrieval in nonfluent aphasia.

Purpose: The goal of this study was to determine whether positive treatment effects of a modified constraint-induced language therapy focused on verb production would generalize to unpracticed items and tasks.

Method: Four individuals participated in a single-subject treatment design protocol. The treatment involved intensive practice producing verbs in sentences in an informative communicative exchange.

Asymmetric inhibitory treatment effects in multilingual aphasia.

Findings from recent psycholinguistic studies of bilingual processing support the hypothesis that both languages of a bilingual are always active and that bilinguals continually engage in processes of language selection. This view aligns with the convergence hypothesis of bilingual language representation. Furthermore, it is hypothesized that when bilinguals perform a task in one language they need to inhibit their other, nontarget language(s) and that stronger inhibition is required when the task is performed in the weaker language than in the stronger one.

Effects of Noun-Verb Conceptual/ Phonological Relatedness on Verb Production Changes in Broca's Aphasia.

Background: Individuals with Broca's aphasia show better performance on nouns than on verbs, but distinction between nouns and verbs is not always clear; some verbs are conceptually and/ or phonologically related to nouns, while others are not. Inconsistent results on effects of noun-verb relatedness on verb production have been reported in the literature.

Aims: We investigated (1) whether verb instrumentality (a conceptual relationship to nouns) or homonymy (a phonological relationship to nouns) would affect verb production in individuals with Broca's aphasia and (2) whether conceptual/ phonological noun-verb relationship would affect responsiveness to aphasia therapy that focused on verb production.

Language Disorders in Multilingual and Multicultural Populations.

We review the characteristics of developmental language disorders (primary language impairment, reading disorders, autism, Down syndrome) and acquired language disorders (aphasia, dementia, traumatic brain injury) among multilingual and multicultural individuals. We highlight the unique assessment and treatment considerations pertinent to this population, including, for example, concerns of language choice and availability of measures and of normative data in multiple languages. A summary of relevant, recent research studies is provided for each of the language disorders selected.

Effects of language proficiency and language of the environment on aphasia therapy in a multilingual.

We examined the relative proficiency of four languages (Spanish, German, French, English) of a multilingual speaker with aphasia, JM. JM's self-rated proficiency was consistent with his naming accuracy for nouns and verbs (The Object and Action Naming Battery, Druks & Masterson, 2000) and with his performance on selected subtests of the Bilingual Aphasia Test (Paradis & Libben, 1987). Within and between-language changes were measured following two periods of language treatment, one in a highly-proficient language (Spanish) and one in a less-proficient language (English).

Effects of hypertension and diabetes on sentence comprehension in aging.

Objectives: To assess the impact of hypertension and diabetes mellitus on sentence comprehension in older adults.

Method: Two hundred and ninety-five adults aged 55 to 84 (52% men) participated in this study. Self-report mail survey combined with medical evaluations were used to determine eligibility.