Fifteen years ago, Pascual-Leone and colleagues used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate speech production in pre-surgical epilepsy patients and in doing so, introduced a novel tool into language research. TMS can be used to non-invasively stimulate a specific cortical region and transiently disrupt information processing. These…

Noun and verb comprehension and production was investigated in two groups of late bilingual, Greek-English speakers: individuals with anomic aphasia and a control group of non-brain injured individuals matched for age and gender. There were no significant differences in verb or noun comprehension between the two groups in either language. However,…

Standard diagnostic procedures for assessing temporal-processing abilities of adult patients with aphasia have so far not been developed. In our study, temporal-order measurements were conducted using two different experimental procedures to identify a suitable measure for clinical studies. Additionally, phoneme-discrimination abilities were…

The aim of this study is to develop a partial theory of phonological paraphasias which has some cross-syndrome and cross-linguistic validity. It is based on the distinction between content and structural units and emphasizes the role of the latter. The notion of structure holds the key to an understanding of the differences among the following…

A classic observation in neurology is that aphasics can sing words they cannot pronounce otherwise. To further assess this claim, we investigated the production of sung and spoken utterances in eight brain-damaged patients suffering from a variety of speech disorders as a consequence of a left-hemisphere lesion. In Experiment 1, the patients were…

This pamphlet is designed for use by nonprofessionals as a guide to providing speech therapy for persons with aphasia. It includes an introduction that reviews the causes of aphasia, its immediate effects at onset, and the reactions typical to persons who develop aphasia. Uncomplicated aphasia is described first with eleven specific therapy…

A PHONETIC ANALYSIS WAS MADE OF SPEECH PRODUCTION IN FIVE PATIENTS WITH MAJOR RESIDUAL DEFICITS IN ARTICULATION FOLLOWING REMISSION OF MORE WIDESPREAD DISTURBANCE OF VERBAL EXPRESSION. THE FINDINGS DEMONSTRATE MAJOR DISTURBANCE OF SPEECH PRODUCTION AT THE MOST MOLECULAR LEVEL. MAXIMAL DIFFICULTY IN ARTICULATION OCCURRED AT THE BEGINNING PORTION OF…

The literature review looks at effectiveness of language treatment for aphasic patients in terms of complications in treatment studies (differences among patients and spontaneous recoveries), and results of treatment studies suggesting that treatment usually benefits only patients who meet specific criteria (such as aphasia of less than 3 months…

The effect of semantic grouping on confrontation-naming performances of 16 fluent and 10 nonfluent aphasic adults was examined. Performances were not uniformly facilitated in one naming condition over the other. Some patients, however, did appear to display performance discrepancies between the two conditions. (Author/CL)

Fluent and nonfluent types of aphasia in adults and children are noted. The value of assessing psycholinguistic differences (e.g., syntactic skills and ability to produce connected discourse) is examined. Treatment implications for enhancing residual linguistic skills are addressed. (CL)

The use of color in speech therapy for adult aphasics is suggested to prolong attention span. Two other techniques, instant definition and over-training, which are helpful in relearning vocabulary words are described. (KW)

The effect of typicality of category exemplars on naming was investigated using a single subject experimental design across participants and behaviors in four patients with fluent aphasia. Patients trained on naming of atypical exemplars demonstrated generalization to naming of intermediate and typical items. However, patients trained on typical…

Summarizes and evaluates research on aphasia, and indicates problem areas that must be studied. (52 references) (CFM)

This study examined the effects that the acoustic-phonetic structure of a stimulus exerts on the processes by which lexical candidates compete for activation. An auditory lexical decision paradigm was used to investigate whether shortening the VOT of an initial voiceless stop consonant in a real word results in the activation of the…