The study investigated the reaction times in the fluent speech utterances of 20 adult stutterers and 20 nonstutterers. Results indicated that reaction times for longer utterances and for utterances requiring minimal preparation were longer for stutterers than for nonstutterers, suggesting stutterers may have difficulty in motor programing of…

Cohesion strategies used by three normal and three head-injured adults were examined in both conversational and narrative conditions. Head-injured subjects used different cohesion patterns than normal adults in both conditions; and both groups used different cohesion patterns in the conversational and narrative conditions. (Author/DB)

Aphasic (N=15) and non-brain-damaged adults listened to and retold two narrative stories three times in succession. Both aphasic and non-brain-damaged subjects were affected by story structure and increased the amount of information retold across retellings. Non-brain-damaged subjects retold slightly more (statistically insignificant) information…

Results of a seven-week sentence stimulation treatment on sentence production in an aphasic adult female with agrammatism indicated that treatment influenced description of test picture sets and that some generalization to other picture sets occurred. (Author/DB)

This study developed a multidimensional topic analysis sensitive to patterns in topic management appropriate for use with head-injured adults. Language samples of a closed-head-injured adult and a matched normal adult were compared. Results demonstrated the analysis' potential to reliably identify, quantify, and describe differences between…

Gains made by a woman with Broca's aphasia as documented by traditional measures were paralleled by changes in conversation, including increased verbal output and efficiency, and changes in conversation-repair patterns. The progress documented with conversational discourse analysis was not observable from other test measures. (Author/DB)

Conversation analysis was used to investigate a conversational partner's strategies when assisting with the word searches of an aphasic person. Analysis of 38 authentic videotaped conversation sequences identified four conversation strategies systematically and collaboratively used: guessing, alternative guessing, completion, and closing…

This study of the forms and functions of expressive communication produced by 84 children and adults with severe mental retardation found significant differences among participants associated with differences in their communication levels (contact gesture, distal gesture, or symbolic), age (child or adult), and residential status (community home…

Studies of American Sign language including functional magnetic resonance imaging of deaf signers confirms the importance of left hemisphere structures in signed language, but also the contributions of right hemisphere regions to sign language processing. A case study involving cortical stimulation mapping in a deaf signer provides evidence for…

This paper reports on a 15-year follow-up of the linguistic and cognitive profile of a woman with standard trisomy 21 (Down syndrome). The follow-up found recent rapid deterioration in receptive and productive language skills. However, basic phonological and morphosyntactic skills are preserved. Her changing profile mirrors that found in aging…

This study compared the object naming, object recognition, reading, and spelling abilities of 22 adults, half with written language difficulties and half without. Significant positive relationships were obtained between object naming ability and reading ability, object naming and spelling, and reading and spelling performance. Results suggest that…

Thirty-two subjects (5 Broca's, 7 conduction, and 10 anomic aphasics and 10 normal controls) performed story retell and procedural discourse tasks containing familiar and unfamiliar topics, with familiar and unfamiliar listeners. Results indicated that topic familiarity significantly influenced verbal output in both normal and aphasic subjects.…

This study examined the effect of emotional content on the verbal pragmatic aspects of discourse production in right-brain-damaged (RBD), left-brain-damaged (LBD), and normal control adults. In the nonemotional conditions, LBDs were particularly impaired in pragmatics, whereas in the emotional condition, RBDs demonstrated pragmatic deficits.…

Brainstem auditory evoked response latencies were studied in 80 males (13 with Down's syndrome). Latencies for waves P3 and P5 were shorter for Down's syndrome subjects, who also showed a different pattern of left versus right ear responses. Results suggest decreased lateralization and receptive and expressive language ability among people with…

This study used dependency analysis to document and describe the narrative discourse impairments of 10 children (mean age 12) and 10 adults (mean age 35) with traumatic brain injury (TBI), and matched controls. Individuals with TBI were significantly more disfluent than controls and their narrative performance required a significant listener…