This volume is both a state-of-the-art display of current thinking on second language development as a complex system. It is also a tribute to Diane Larsen-Freeman for her decades of intellectual leadership in the academic disciplines of applied linguistics and second language acquisition. The chapters therein range from theoretical expositions to…

The goal of all speech rehabilitation methods is the restoration of speech as a unitary higher function. One approach views speech as a complex but coherent system where all levels and components are interconnected. This view takes into consideration the use of verbal communication, which takes place at a higher speech level and includes activity,…

Examination of the lexical errors (phonological paraphasias and neologisms) of two posterior aphasic patients who are speakers of Finnish, a highly synthetic language, revealed that the lexical difficulties generally typical of posterior aphasics were found in these patients as well. The typical lexical difficulties clustered around open class…

An examination of the word-finding problems and nonverbal communication in the conversations of three aphasic patients revealed three different patterns of communicative strategies and success in different kinds of activities, such as tests and conversation. One, with mainly a parietal lesion, hesitates often with turn-keeping gestures and stops…

This paper examines the tacit assumptions behind different theories about the nature of language and aphasia, and it discusses critically the use of structural and generative linguistic theories to explain the behavior of aphasics, especially with regard to the difference between spoken and written discourse. It is proposed that, rather than try…

The sentence processing abilities of a conduction aphasic adult woman with a documented phonological coding deficit were investigated in tests of auditory and visual sentence comprehension of reversible active and passive sentences and spatial prepositions, sentence production through story completion and picture description, and repetition of…

A study of eight adult chronic aphasic patients' comprehension of sentences and pictures in which comparisons of time and space were crucial was designed to assess A. R. Luria's approach to designing comprehension test tasks. The investigation required patients, with lesions of varying size and location, to determine whether a sentence expressing…

The use of a traditional syndrome-classification system for aphasics is examined critically from the different perspectives of medicine and psychometrics. Medicine views syndromes as dichotomous (present or not present) and necessarily indicative of an underlying pathognomic state or process, and psychometrics sees performances as varying along a…

Language disorders in children are one of the most frequent causes of difficulties in communication, social interaction, learning and academic achievement. It has been estimated that over 5% of children present with some kind of language disorder. This volume illustrates the state of the art in neurogenic language disorders in children. The most…