Focuses on generic discourse practices by tracing the persuasive heterogeneity and the distributed nature of discourse genres in use. Three examples from research are explored: a father and his two daughters playing a family-created verbal game; a family's engagement with their 2-year-old's creative retellings of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit"; and a…

A short, 2-day, seminar-style program designed for adults with chronic aphasia and their families is described. Six-month follow-up data from 21 participant pairs found a significant improvement in functional activity level, improved knowledge of aphasia, and improved family relationships. Nonparticipant pairs (n=15) did not show any changes.…

Group treatment is explored in light of its psychosocial context, treatment effectiveness, and efficiency. A summary of the four group treatment approaches (two for children, two for adults) for communicative disorders are provided: classroom-based elementary school group, multicultural and multilinguistic preschool group, alaryngeal speech…

Studies on brains of individuals with an exceptional mental capacity are of widespread interest. Here, we analyze the cytoarchitecture of areas 44 and 45 (anatomical correlates of Broca's speech region) of a person with a documented extraordinary competence in language performance (Emil Krebs, E.K.), and compared it with 11 control brains.…

In the first part of this study, we investigated effects of item and task type on span performance in a group of aphasic individuals with word processing and STM deficits. Group analyses revealed significant effects of item on span performance with span being greater for digits than for words. We also investigated associations between subjects'…

The study employed a single-subject multiple baseline design to examine the ability of 9 individuals with severe Broca's aphasia or global aphasia to produce graphic symbol sentences of varying syntactical complexity using a software program that turns a computer into a speech output communication device. The sentences ranged in complexity from…

Previous studies have shown that an aphasic patient (AB) with a semantic short-term memory deficit (STM) had difficulties comprehending and producing sentences with structures that demanded the simultaneous retention of several individual word meanings (Martin & Freedman, 2001a, 2001b; Martin & Romani, 1994; Martin, Shelton, & Yaffee, 1994). The…

Every year, 10000 people of working age in the UK have a stroke. Although half of all cases occur in those over 75 years of age, stroke affects more than 1000 people under the age of 30 years. The effects of stroke are far reaching and many people will find that they are unable to return to their previous lives. For some, a way to improve their…

Examines the language difficulties of an adult aphasic, particularly in the areas of reading and writing, in an attempt to fill a gap in the study of reading and writing pathology. (AM)

An adaptation of the Fluency in Controlled Association subtest of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination was administered to language-disordered (N=123) and non-disabled (N=286) kindergarten through ninth-grade students. Lack of significant differences on this task suggests that it may not be an appropriate screening device for identifying…

Nonlinear common factor models with polynomial regression functions, including interaction terms, are fitted by simultaneously estimating the factor loadings and common factor scores, using maximum likelihood and least squares methods. A Monte Carlo study gives support to a conjecture about the form of the distribution of the likelihood ratio…

Examines the extent to which anomia, self-esteem, and life satisfaction are conceptually distinct. Data came from interviews held with older men living in nonmetropolitan areas of Iowa. Analysis demonstrated that, while the concepts of anomia and self-esteem are distinct, the domain of life satisfaction overlaps those of anomia and self-esteem.…

Four individuals with agrammatic aphasia were trained to comprehend and produce filler-gap sentences with wh-movement. Two participants received treatment first on the least complex structure (who-questions), and 2 received treatment on the most complex form (object-relative constructions). Object-relative training resulted in robust…

A study investigated outcomes of 20 adults with chronic aphasia 2 years after discharge from an intensive treatment program. Results found 62% of those employed prior to aphasia onset were working at follow-up. Generally, respondents showed higher level of social integration and 85% indicated a positive life satisfaction. (Contains references.)…

Summarizes the results of Finnish studies dealing with single-word experiments with aphasics as well as lexical decisions and eye-movement registration tests performed on normals. It then proposes a processing model for Finnish nouns, Stem Allomorph/Inflectional Decomposition (SAID), which predicts that both inflected and productive derived forms…