Reading Test-Sentence Comprehension: An Adapted Version of Lobrot's Lecture 3 Test for Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract The test called ‘Reading Test: Sentence Comprehension (TELCS)’ has been validated and standardized. Participants (N = 1289, 2nd to 5th grade, 7 to 11-years-old) were stratified in 15 state-schools in Brazil. The TELCS demonstrated reliability and validity to classify reading performance by both school grade and chronological age. Correlations between the TELCS and a General Reading Composite score were high, as were those with reading accuracy rates of word and pseudoword. Cluster analysis suggested a five-class solution: reading disability, below, average, above, and high reading performance. For individual or collective use, TELCS can quickly screen the sentence reading ability, useful to identify those who might need additional support.

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Prosodic Boundary Effects on Syntactic Disambiguation in Children With Cochlear Implants

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2018_jslhr-l-17-0036 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 61 (5) ◽

pp. 1188-1202

Author(s):

Talita Fortunato-Tavares ◽

Richard G. Schwartz ◽

Klara Marton ◽

Claudia F. de Andrade ◽

Derek Houston

Keyword(s):

Cochlear Implants ◽

Processing Speed ◽

Sentence Comprehension ◽

Brazilian Portuguese ◽

Boundary Effects ◽

Linguistic Differences ◽

Relative Boundary ◽

Prosodic Boundaries ◽

The Absolute ◽

Prosodic Boundary

Purpose This study investigated prosodic boundary effects on the comprehension of attachment ambiguities in children with cochlear implants (CIs) and normal hearing (NH) and tested the absolute boundary hypothesis and the relative boundary hypothesis. Processing speed was also investigated. Method Fifteen children with NH and 13 children with CIs (ages 8–12 years) who are monolingual speakers of Brazilian Portuguese participated in a computerized comprehension task with sentences containing prepositional phrase attachment ambiguity and manipulations of prosodic boundaries. Results Children with NH and children with CIs differed in how they used prosodic forms to disambiguate sentences. Children in both groups provided responses consistent with half of the predictions of the relative boundary hypothesis. The absolute boundary hypothesis did not characterize the syntactic disambiguation of children with CIs. Processing speed was similar in both groups. Conclusions Children with CIs do not use prosodic information to disambiguate sentences or to facilitate comprehension of unambiguous sentences similarly to children with NH. The results suggest that cross-linguistic differences may interact with syntactic disambiguation. Prosodic contrasts that affect sentence comprehension need to be addressed directly in intervention with children with CIs.

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VALIDATION OF THE MINI LINGUISTIC STATE EXAMINATION (MLSE) TO BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE: TASKS INTELLIGIBILITY PILOT STUDY

10.5327/1980-5764.rpda109 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Lucas Mourão ◽

Maria Carthery- Goulart ◽

Isabel de Almeida ◽

Peter Garrard ◽

Sônia Brucki

Keyword(s):

Cultural Adaptation ◽

Sentence Comprehension ◽

Mini Mental State Examination ◽

Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽

Brazilian Portuguese ◽

British English ◽

Word Repetition ◽

Left Handed ◽

State Examination ◽

Language Sensitivity

Background: The Mini Linguistic State Examination (MLSE) was developed in British English as a 20-minutes Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) screening test (Garrard, P. et al, 2012). Its tasks are: picture naming; listening comprehension of sentence; comprehension of single word; word repetition; sentence repetition; reading; writing; semantic association; and figure description. The MLSE was later translated to Italian and Spanish (Patel, N. et al, 2020) due to the following features: applicability by clinicians without expertise in language; sensitivity for diagnosis, distinction and progression of PPA subtypes; ability to identify features of atypical forms of PPA. Objective: Translation, cultural adaptation, standardization and validation of the MLSE English version to Brazilian Portuguese, allowing its application for PPA screening in the Brazilian population. Methods: Five controls were evalu- ated in order to verify tasks intelligibility of the first Brazilian Portuguese version of the MLSE. A control performed the test via telemedicine. The highest possible score was 100. Results: All controls were female. One subject was left-handed. Mean age was 50,4 (+- 12,94) years with mean schooling of 17 (+- 3,28) years. Mean Mini Mental State Examination score was 28,6 (+- 1,52), while mean MLSE score was 98,2 (+- 1,40). Conclusion: All MLSE tasks were intelligible to five individuals without aphasia. Subsequently more controls with different ranges of age and schooling will be evaluated for standardization.

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Sentence comprehension in Parkinson's disease

Dementia & Neuropsychologia ◽

10.1590/s1980-57642008dn10400010 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 1 (4) ◽

pp. 386-391 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Fernanda Prieto ◽

Márcia Radanovic ◽

Cristina Schmitt ◽

Egberto Reis Barbosa ◽

Letícia Lessa Mansur

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Sentence Comprehension ◽

Brazilian Portuguese ◽

Control Group ◽

Complex Sentences ◽

Comprehension Test ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Language Behavior ◽

Token Test

Abstract Parkinson's disease (PD) patients with dementia have impairment of syntactic comprehension. Non-demented PD patients also experience difficulties in sentence comprehension and can be particularly impaired in the processing of grammatical characteristics of syntactically complex sentences. Objective: The aim of this study was to verify the performance of PD patients without dementia in a syntactic comprehension task compared with normal elderly. Methods: We studied oral sentence comprehension in fourteen patients with idiopathic PD together with fourteen controls matched for age and education, using the Token Test and Schmitt's Syntactic Comprehension Test (developed in Brazilian Portuguese). Results: For the Token Test, there was no statistically significant difference between the PD group and the control group, whereas on the Syntactic Comprehension Test there was a slight statistically significant difference between the groups only for relatives in subject clauses (p=0.0407). Conclusions: PD patients differed from controls in the oral comprehension for relatives subject sentences alone. These results did not strictly reproduce those previously reported in the literature, and therefore point to the need for creating tests with diverse syntactic constructions in Portuguese able to produce consistent data regarding language behavior of Brazilian subjects with PD in comprehension tasks.

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Word-order typology and the acquisition of case marking: A self-paced reading study in Latin as a second language

Second language Research ◽

10.1177/0267658318785652 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 35 (3) ◽

pp. 397-420 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Bill VanPatten ◽

Megan Smith

Keyword(s):

Word Order ◽

Sentence Comprehension ◽

First Language ◽

Reading Test ◽

Test Items ◽

Slowing Down ◽

Case Marking ◽

Basic Sentence ◽

The Mind ◽

Reading Study

This article reports the findings of a study in which we investigated the possible effects of word order on the acquisition of case marking. In linguistic typology (e.g. Greenberg, 1963) a very strong correlation has been shown between dominant SOV (subject object verb) word order and case marking. No such correlation exists for SVO (subject verb object) languages. It is possible then that the mind is more likely to expect case marking when confronted with a language with SOV word order but not necessarily so if the language has SVO word order. We tested this hypothesis with 54 naive learners of Latin with English as a first language (L1). The participants were divided into two groups. One received a 100-word input treatment in Latin that contained only simple SOV sentences, and the other received the same input treatment except that the word order of the treatment sentences was SVO. After the treatment, a surprise self-paced reading test that contained grammatical and ungrammatical case-marked sentences was administered. Participants read test items that matched the word order of the treatment they received (i.e. SOV learners read SOV sentences, and SVO learners read SOV sentences). Results showed a significant slowing down on ungrammatical sentences for the SOV group but not for the SVO group. However, on a test of basic sentence comprehension in which case marking was the cue to determine who did what to whom, we found no distinction between the groups. We discuss these findings in light of how typological universals work in languages and what they could mean for language acquisition.

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When Hearing Does Not Mean Understanding: On the Neural Processing of Syntactically Complex Sentences by Listeners With Hearing Loss

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2020_jslhr-20-00262 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-13

Author(s):

Margreet Vogelzang ◽

Christiane M. Thiel ◽

Stephanie Rosemann ◽

Jochem W. Rieger ◽

Esther Ruigendijk

Keyword(s):

Hearing Loss ◽

Sentence Processing ◽

Secondary Task ◽

Sentence Comprehension ◽

Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽

Normal Hearing ◽

Cognitive Demands ◽

Sentence Complexity ◽

Complex Sentences ◽

And Task

Purpose Adults with mild-to-moderate age-related hearing loss typically exhibit issues with speech understanding, but their processing of syntactically complex sentences is not well understood. We test the hypothesis that listeners with hearing loss' difficulties with comprehension and processing of syntactically complex sentences are due to the processing of degraded input interfering with the successful processing of complex sentences. Method We performed a neuroimaging study with a sentence comprehension task, varying sentence complexity (through subject–object order and verb–arguments order) and cognitive demands (presence or absence of a secondary task) within subjects. Groups of older subjects with hearing loss ( n = 20) and age-matched normal-hearing controls ( n = 20) were tested. Results The comprehension data show effects of syntactic complexity and hearing ability, with normal-hearing controls outperforming listeners with hearing loss, seemingly more so on syntactically complex sentences. The secondary task did not influence off-line comprehension. The imaging data show effects of group, sentence complexity, and task, with listeners with hearing loss showing decreased activation in typical speech processing areas, such as the inferior frontal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus. No interactions between group, sentence complexity, and task were found in the neuroimaging data. Conclusions The results suggest that listeners with hearing loss process speech differently from their normal-hearing peers, possibly due to the increased demands of processing degraded auditory input. Increased cognitive demands by means of a secondary visual shape processing task influence neural sentence processing, but no evidence was found that it does so in a different way for listeners with hearing loss and normal-hearing listeners.

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Topographische Orientierung bei Patienten mit erworbener Hirnschädigung

Zeitschrift für Neuropsychologie ◽

10.1024//1016-264x.10.2.77 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 77-86

Author(s):

Martina Kindsmüller ◽

Andrea Kaindl ◽

Uwe Schuri ◽

Alf Zimmer

Keyword(s):

Brain Damage ◽

Cognitive Deficits ◽

Hospital Setting ◽

Hospital Staff ◽

Reading Test ◽

Map Reading ◽

Several Variables ◽

Topographical Orientation ◽

The One ◽

Behavioral Memory

Topographical Orientation in Patients with Acquired Brain Damage Abstract: A study was conducted to investigate the abilities of topographical orientation in patients with acquired brain damage. The first study investigates the correlation between wayfinding in a hospital setting and various sensory and cognitive deficits as well as the predictability of navigating performance by specific tests, self-rating of orientation ability and rating by staff. The investigation included 35 neuropsychological patients as well as 9 control subjects. Several variables predicted the wayfinding performance reasonably well: memory tests like the one introduced by Muramoto and a subtest of the Rivermead Behavioral Memory Test, the Map Reading Test and the rating by hospital staff. Patients with hemianopia experienced significant difficulty in the task.

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