Browsing by Subject "Aphasia"
Now showing 1 - 13 of 13
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Aphasia and Wings: a script analysis for production(Texas Tech University, 1986-05) Bray, Katherine JNot availableItem Diagnostic accuracy in motor speech disorders: an application of signal detection theory(Texas Tech University, 2004-05) Whitaker, Melissa C.; Bogschutz, Renee J.; Schmitt, Mary B.; Aoyama, Kastura; Corwin, Melinda D.The results of this study indicated that participants accurately and reliably differentiated normal from abnormal speech samples. Thus, all groups proficiently identified disordered cases while limiting the number of misdiagnoses; however, some degree of task difficulty was noted and clinical biases were evident. For this research question, group trends indicated that the most experienced group of participants adopted a more lenient diagnostic criterion as compared to the intermediate and novice groups.Item Effects of multiple oral reading with explicit teaching on reading rate and accuracy for persons with acquired alexia(2013-05) Cox, Andrea; Corwin, Melinda D.; Koul, Rajinder; Perry, CarolynFor adults with chronic aphasia and alexia, repeated reading improves reading rate, and explicit teaching improves reading accuracy. These two reading treatments have not been combined with adults; however, repeated reading and explicit instruction have been combined in studies with children to increase oral reading fluency (rate and accuracy). This study involved a single subject multiple baseline design across three adult participants with acquired aphasia and alexia. A combined multiple oral reading with explicit teaching treatment was used for the purpose of improving reading fluency. Results revealed increased reading rates across all participants, yet no change in reading accuracy as a result of treatment. Further, improvements were achieved within a small number of treatment sessions in persons who are several years post onset of aphasia and alexia. Clinically, rapid improvements in oral reading rate may be achieved for persons with acquired alexia using multiple oral reading paired with explicit teaching.Item Effects of post-stroke depression on cognitive and linguistic recovery(2010-05) Amoroso, Jill; Harris, Joyce L.; Marquardt, Thomas P.The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between functional recovery from stroke and depression. Stroke leads to depression both directly (through the location of the lesion) and indirectly (through decreased functional status and aphasia secondary to stroke). Consequently, depression may limit functional recovery and recovery from aphasia. The relationship between decreased functional status post-stroke and depression appears to be bidirectional and mutually-reinforcing (decreased functional status leads to depression and depression limits functional recovery). Similarly, the relationship between aphasia recovery and depression is likely bidirectional and mutually reinforcing. Antidepressants may be useful in disrupting these relationships and thereby improving functional recovery from stroke.Item The effects of verb network strengthening treatment on sentence production in individuals with aphasia(2005-08) Edmonds, Lisa Anna Marie; Kiran, SwathiSome persons with aphasia exhibit a selective verb deficit, which results in a reduced ability to produce verbs in most contexts. A functional level (Bock & Levelt, 1994) impairment may result in impaired sentence production because the verb serves as the semantic-syntactic interface of a sentence. This interface is related to a verb’s relationship with its arguments/thematics. Arguments fill the syntactic slots of subject and object, and those same words serve as thematic roles by referring to who does what to whom. The current study investigates the effect of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) on sentence production using a single subject experimental design across subjects in 4 participants, 2 with nonfluent aphasia and 2 with fluent aphasia. Participants received semantic treatment aimed at re-strengthening the connections between a verb (e.g., measure) and related thematic pairs that refer to the doer and receiver of the action (e.g., carpenter/lumber, chef/sugar). The ability to produce thematic role pairs for trained verbs was tested during treatment while generalization to the ability to produce sentences containing a subject, verb, and object in a picture description task with trained verbs (e.g., The carpenter is measuring the stairs.) and semantically related untrained verbs (e.g., The nurse is weighing the baby.) was monitored. In addition, pre- and post-treatment single word retrieval of verbs (The Northwestern Verb Production Battery (NVPB) (Thompson, 2002)) and nouns (The Boston Naming Test (Goodglass & Kaplan, 1983)) was examined as well as sentence production abilities in unrelated picture description (NVPB) and constrained connected speech tasks. All participants met treatment criteria and exhibited generalization to sentence production with sentences containing trained and semantically related untrained verbs. Participants 1, 2, and 3 exhibited improvements on all pre- and post-treatment measures, including connected speech. Participant 4 exhibited gains on multiple measures but did not show improvement in connected speech. These findings indicate that treatment aimed at strengthening the verb network results in improved word retrieval in naming and sentence production across multiple tasks. Theoretical and clinical implications regarding the impact of using VNeST on rehabilitation of sentence production deficits in aphasia are discussed.Item Efficacy of computer-assisted treatment for anomia in persons with chronic aphasia(2009-05) Wells, Meredith L.; Corwin, Melinda; Dembowski, James; Koul, RajinderOne relatively new area of treatment efficacy research centers around computerized treatment for aphasia. This one-group single-treatment counterbalanced study determined the efficacy of commercially-available treatment software for anomia in persons with chronic aphasia. Eight Parrot Software programs were addressed in an intensive 32-hour treatment program lasting 4 weeks. The effect of this treatment on confrontational naming ability and oral discourse, as well satisfaction with the treatment program, was measured. The six participants (divided into two subgroups of three) were administered 4 weeks of treatment and 4 weeks of no treatment, with the order of phases counterbalanced across subgroups. Three assessment sessions (AS) measured responses to two confrontational naming tasks, two picture description tasks, and one narrative retell task. The Program Evaluation Inventory – Short Form (PEI-SF) was administered in AS3 to measure treatment acceptability. Results indicated a significant change in confrontation naming ability. No change was noted in measures of oral discourse. Results of the PEI-SF indicated that participants felt the treatment employed acceptable procedures and goals and that the participants felt overall satisfaction with the intervention program. Clinical implications of the study are discussed and program modifications are suggested.Item The impact of stroke and aphasia on quality of life(2015-05) Wilson, Kelly Michelle; Marquardt, Thomas P.; Nericcio, Mary AnneThe report examines the whole-person impact of stroke and stroke-induced aphasia. Incidence and prevalence, physical and somatosensory impacts of stroke are discussed, as are the effects of communicative and cognitive impairments on the patient and family. Stroke and aphasia specific quality of life scales are evaluated relative to design of treatment and quality of life improvement for individuals with aphasia.Item Investigation of Resource Allocation in Persons with Aphasia for AAC-Related Tasks(Texas Tech University, 2011-08) Petroi, Diana; Koul, Rajinder; Corwin, Melinda D.; Dembowski, James; Aoyama, Katsura; O'Boyle, MichaelThis study investigated resource allocation abilities in persons with aphasia (PWA) in the presence and absence of competing stimuli across a series of experimental tasks that involved identifying and selecting single symbols and subject-verb-object (SVO) sentences on a speech generating device (SGD). Participants included 10 individuals with Broca’s aphasia and a group of 10 typical individuals matched on assigned variables. A mixed-group design was used to compare the performance of the two groups on single symbol and SVO sentence accuracy and response latency measures. Data were analyzed using a repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results revealed that PWA accurately identified significantly (p <.01) fewer single symbols and SVO sentences in comparison to matched control participants. Additionally, number of symbols per screen and level of location of symbols had a significant effect (p <.01) on accuracy of responses for both groups. Furthermore, there was a significant (p <.05) interaction between the listening condition and group variables, indicating that competing stimuli have the potential to slow down the processing of information for PWA. Analysis of response latencies indicated that PWA exhibited longer response latencies across all three listening conditions in contrast to control participants. A significant negative correlation (p <.05) was observed between accuracy of responses for the single symbol and SVO sentence tasks and perceptual ratings of task difficulty. In summary, the results of this study indicate that effective and efficient use of SGDs by PWA depends upon several vocabulary organization factors such as the number of symbols on a screen and the specific location of a symbol across several screens. These results suggest that researchers and clinicians may need to consider organizing vocabulary on SGDs in such a manner as to reduce the cognitive demands placed on PWA.Item Living well with aphasia : spousal involvement as an integral component in stroke recovery(2011-05) McCabe, Kathryn Rose; Harris, Joyce L.; Shamapant, ShilpaStroke has the ability to chronically alter both a person’s understanding and or use of language. Aphasia is a term that represents the loss or impairment of language function as a consequence of brain damage caused by a stroke and current data reveal that at least 25% of all strokes result in aphasia. Spouses often play a pivotal role in a stroke patient’s journey towards recovery. For this reason, there is a dire need for increased knowledge regarding spousal psychosocial welfare and increased insight into the experiences of these individual’s altered life situations. This paper considers aphasia, by nature of its deficits, a family disorder. Additionally, the contents of this paper explore the significance of caregiver coping strategies and ongoing caregiver involvement in recovery as a mechanism towards increased well being. Evidence to confirm the effects of stroke on spouses, as well as to support involvement of spouses in speech-language treatment to facilitate living well with aphasia, was obtained through primary and secondary research. Primary research was compiled through a telephone interview with the spouse of a 62-year-old male with aphasia while secondary research was conducted through an extensive literature search from 2000 to 2011.Item Neural activation patterns in chronic stroke patients with aphasia : the role of lesion site, lesion size and task difficulty(2010-12) Sebastian, Rajani; Kiran, Swathi; Champlin, Craig A.; Sussman, Harvey M.; Jones, Theresa A.; Schnyer, David M.Functional neuroimaging research on language recovery in patients with aphasia due to left hemisphere damage has generated some intriguing results. However, it is still not clear what role the right hemisphere plays in supporting language functions in chronic phase for patients with different site and size of lesion when different tasks are used. The present study was aimed at exploring the role of perilesional, ipsilesional and contralesional regions in neural recovery in participants with aphasia with different site and size of lesion using three different language tasks. All patients in the present study were in the chronic stage who had achieved high levels of recovery. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to characterize cortical activation in eight stroke patients and eight age/gender matched controls during lexical decision, semantic judgment and picture naming. An event related design using jittered interstimulus intervals (ISIs) was employed to present the stimuli. The fMRI scans revealed differences in activation patterns across the three tasks. Normal control participants and participants with aphasia mainly activated the left perisylvian region during the lexical decision task and the semantic judgment task. However, during the picture naming task, all participants activated bilateral posterior regions irrespective of the site or size of lesion. Subsequent regions of interest analysis and laterality index analysis revealed that patients with larger lesions produced greater right hemisphere activation than patients with smaller lesions during the picture naming task. The results of this study demonstrate that recovery is task, lesion site and lesion size specific. Further, the findings of the present study indicate a role for both homologous contralesional cortex and perilesional and ipsilesional regions as efficient mechanisms for supporting language functions in chronic stroke patients.Item Pilot study of crowdsourcing evidence-based practice research for adults with aphasia(2014-05) Rigney, Daniel Yiorgios; Chandrasekaran, BharathThe purpose of this study is to explore crowdsourcing as a research paradigm for creating evidence-based practice research in the field of speech pathology. Using an Internet survey, respondents provided de-identified information about one patient with aphasia they had treated in the previous year. The respondents were then asked to rate the success of treatment. Analysis and grading of the responses was performed to identify which responses were usable for the purpose of planning a treatment for a patient with similar demographics and diagnostic make-up. Results showed that crowdsourcing is a viable research method; however, further refinements to the collection and analysis are required before it can be an effectively used.Item Post-stroke aphasia rehabilitation : a review of the history and findings for constraint-induced therapy(2013-05) Benning, Caroline Catherine; Marquardt, Thomas P.Constraint-induced (CI) therapy is an approach adapted from motor rehabilitation to treat language deficits in individuals with poststroke aphasia. The principles of CI therapy were established from behavioral research with animal models that were later applied to human neurorehabilitation. There is a substantial body of evidence to support CI therapy for the treatment of postroke motor deficits; however, evidence for CI aphasia therapy is less established. This report examines the history and current state of evidence for the use of CI-based therapy to treat adults with poststroke aphasia.Item Right hemisphere participation in aphasia recovery : a qualification of incongruous findings in the literature(2012-05) Reid, Lydia Amanda; Marquardt, Thomas P.; Sussman, HarveyNeuroplasticity research yields mixed results for the differential contribution of perilesional and contralesional brain areas to language recovery in aphasia. This paper will outline variables that mediate the presence and degree of right hemisphere activity and may account for some of the inconsistent research findings. Factors include the site and size of left hemisphere lesions, the phase of recovery, and the language task type and complexity. The performance accuracy of tasks also will be explored to further qualify the nature of homologous activity. Results found right hemisphere activation to be modulated by the damage and preservation of specific brain areas as well as by the presence of large left hemisphere lesions. Right hemisphere activity also was more consistently evident in the acute phase of recovery and returned to the left hemisphere in the chronic stage. Additionally, homologous areas tended to be more active during comprehension-based language tasks and during tasks of greater difficulty. In qualifying the nature of contralesional mechanisms, the activity appears to be more linguistic-oriented in less-recovered individuals with aphasia and more related to cognitive effort in well-recovered individuals. The nature of homologous activation depends on the brain’s ability to reactivate left hemisphere language networks.