The Neural Correlates of Semantic and Grammatical Encoding During Sentence Production in a Second Language: Evidence From an fMRI Study Using Structural Priming

Japanese English learners have difficulty speaking Double Object (DO; give B A) than Prepositional Object (PO; give A to B) structures which neural underpinning is unknown. In speaking, syntactic and phonological processing follow semantic encoding, conversion of non-verbal mental representation into a structure suitable for expression. To test whether DO difficulty lies in linguistic or prelinguistic process, we conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging. Thirty participants described cartoons using DO or PO, or simply named them. Greater reaction times and error rates indicated DO difficulty. DO compared with PO showed parieto-frontal activation including left inferior frontal gyrus, reflecting linguistic process. Psychological priming in PO produced immediately after DO and vice versa compared to after control, indicated shared process between PO and DO. Cross-structural neural repetition suppression was observed in occipito-parietal regions, overlapping the linguistic system in pre-SMA. Thus DO and PO share prelinguistic process, whereas linguistic process imposes overload in DO.

An investigation of the dependency of subject-verb agreement on inhibitory control processes in sentence production

Agreement attraction, i.e., the production or acceptance of a verb that agrees with a noun other than the subject of the sentence, can be viewed as a process in which conflicting cues activate competing representations. The aftermath of such competition, in terms of cognitive processes, remains unclear. Using a novel referential communication task for eliciting agreement errors and both group-level manipulation of control demands and a detailed analysis of individual differences, we provide converging evidence for the role of monitoring and inhibitory control processes in agreement attraction for singular-subject sentences. We further demonstrate the dependence of producing plural verbs on such processes, suggesting the singular form is the prepotent default form. Collectively, these findings provide a clear demonstration for the role of monitoring and control processes in agreement computations, and more generally syntactic operations in sentence production.

Does the Use of Complex Sentences Differentiate Between Bilinguals With and Without DLD? Evidence From Conversation and Narrative Tasks

Over-identification of language disorder among bilingual children with typical development (TD) is a risk factor in assessment. One strategy for improving assessment accuracy with bilingual children is to determine which linguistic sub-domains differentiate bilingual children with TD from bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD). To date, little research on sequential bilinguals with TD and DLD has focussed on complex (multi-clausal) sentences in naturalistic production, even though this is a noted domain of weakness for school-age monolinguals with DLD. Accordingly, we sought to determine if there were differences in the use of complex sentences in conversational and narrative tasks between school-age sequential bilinguals with TD and with DLD at the early stages of L2 acquisition. We administered a conversation and a narrative task to 63 English L2 children with TD and DLD, aged 5–7 years with 2 years of exposure to the L2. Children had diverse first language backgrounds. The L2-TD and L2-DLD groups were matched for age, length of L2 exposure and general L2 proficiency (receptive vocabulary size). Language samples from both tasks were coded and analyzed for the use of complex versus simple sentences, for the distribution of complex sentence types, for clausal density and mean length of utterance (MLU). Complex sentences included coordinated clauses, sentential complement clauses, adverbial clauses and relative clauses. Using regression modelling and PERMANOVA, we found that the L2-TD group produced more complex sentences than the L2-DLD group, with coordinated clauses, adverbial clauses and relative clauses differing the most between the groups. Furthermore, the two groups differed for mean clausal density, but not for MLU, indicating that clausal density and MLU did not estimate identical morphosyntactic abilities. Individual variation in complex sentence production for L2-TD was predicted by longer L2 exposure and task; by contrast, for L2-DLD, it was predicted by older age. This study indicates that complex sentence production is an area of weakness for bilingual children with DLD, as it is for monolinguals with DLD. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed.

A Systematically Conducted Scoping Review of the Evidence and Fidelity of Treatments for Verb and Sentence Deficits in Aphasia: Sentence Treatments

Purpose: This review article synthesizes and evaluates the evidence for sentence production treatments in aphasia, systematically charting impairment-based and functional communication outcomes. It reports (a) the level of evidence and fidelity of sentence treatments; (b) the impact of treatment on production of trained and untrained verbs and sentences, functional communication, and discourse; and (c) the potential active ingredients of treatment. Method: The search included studies from January 1980 to June 2019. The level of evidence of each study was documented, as was fidelity in terms of treatment delivery, enactment, and receipt. Studies were also categorized according to treatment methods used. Results: Thirty-three studies were accepted into the review and predominantly constituted Level 4 evidence (e.g., case control studies and case series). Thirty studies (90%) described treatment in sufficient detail to allow replication, but dosage was poorly reported, and fidelity of treatment was rarely assessed. The most commonly reported treatment techniques were mapping (10 studies: 30%), predicate argument structure treatment (six studies: 18%), and verb network strengthening treatment (five studies: 15%). Production of trained sentences improved for 83% of participants, and improvements generalized to untrained sentences for 59% of participants. Functional communication was rarely assessed, but discourse production improved for 70% of participants. Conclusions: The evidence for sentence treatments is predominantly generated from Level 4 studies. Treatments were effective for the majority of participants regarding trained sentence and discourse production. However, there is inconsistent use of statistical analysis to verify improvements, and diverse outcome measures are used, which makes interpretation of the evidence difficult. The quality of sentence treatment research would be improved by agreeing a core set of outcome measures and extended by ascertaining the views of participants on sentence treatments.

Kesenyapan dan Kekeliruan Wicara Public Speaking dalam Produksi Kalimat serta Hubungannya dengan Pemakaian Memori

This study aims to discuss aspects in sentence production including the phenomena of various types of silence and errors in the production of sentences (speaking) that occur in the speaker (public speaking), the factors that cause silence and errors in sentence production, the relationship between the phenomena of silence. with the memory usage process, and the things the speaker needs to pay attention to (public speaking) to avoid silences and mistakes in speaking (sentence production). This research uses a qualitative approach with descriptive analysis method. The results showed that in the speech activities carried out by public speaking, there were various forms of silence and tongue twitching caused by certain factors.Keywords: sentence production, silence, tongue flash, speech

A "Core Skills" Approach to the Assessment of Acquired Language Disorders: Exploration and Cross-Validation

<p>The majority of diagnostic assessments of aphasia—an acquired language disorder that commonly occurs after stroke or brain injury—are based upon the classical model of language. A major limitation of these diagnostic assessments is that they are based upon a very simple neuroanatomical model of language function. In the decades since the classical model, cognitive theories of language function have developed considerably, which provides a much richer framework for the assessment of acquired language disorders. On the basis of this framework, Faulkner, Wilshire, Parker, and Cunningham (2015) developed the Brief Language Assessment for Surgical Tumours (BLAST) for the assessment of language function in brain tumour patients, based upon the notion that language can be decomposed into core cognitive skills. In the current thesis, we evaluate the efficacy of the BLAST in individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia, cross-validate the core cognitive skills identified by the BLAST with independent measures argued to index the same theoretical construct, and evaluate whether an individual’s linguistic profile on the BLAST is predictive of performance on a more naturalistic sentence production task. The results from the current research can be divided into three primary findings. First, we found that the BLAST could be administered to individuals with post-stroke aphasia, and that the linguistic profiles provided by the BLAST extend far beyond the predictions derived from neural localization and classical diagnostic assessments. Second, we found support for the validity of five of the core cognitive skills. Third, we found some support for the notion that performance on the BLAST may be predictive of performance on a more naturalistic sentence production task. In short, the current findings suggest that the BLAST holds potential as a clinical tool for the assessment of language function in a range of different neurological populations.</p>

A "Core Skills" Approach to the Assessment of Acquired Language Disorders: Exploration and Cross-Validation

<p>The majority of diagnostic assessments of aphasia—an acquired language disorder that commonly occurs after stroke or brain injury—are based upon the classical model of language. A major limitation of these diagnostic assessments is that they are based upon a very simple neuroanatomical model of language function. In the decades since the classical model, cognitive theories of language function have developed considerably, which provides a much richer framework for the assessment of acquired language disorders. On the basis of this framework, Faulkner, Wilshire, Parker, and Cunningham (2015) developed the Brief Language Assessment for Surgical Tumours (BLAST) for the assessment of language function in brain tumour patients, based upon the notion that language can be decomposed into core cognitive skills. In the current thesis, we evaluate the efficacy of the BLAST in individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia, cross-validate the core cognitive skills identified by the BLAST with independent measures argued to index the same theoretical construct, and evaluate whether an individual’s linguistic profile on the BLAST is predictive of performance on a more naturalistic sentence production task. The results from the current research can be divided into three primary findings. First, we found that the BLAST could be administered to individuals with post-stroke aphasia, and that the linguistic profiles provided by the BLAST extend far beyond the predictions derived from neural localization and classical diagnostic assessments. Second, we found support for the validity of five of the core cognitive skills. Third, we found some support for the notion that performance on the BLAST may be predictive of performance on a more naturalistic sentence production task. In short, the current findings suggest that the BLAST holds potential as a clinical tool for the assessment of language function in a range of different neurological populations.</p>

The effect of lexical content on sentence production in nonfluent aphasia

<p>Individuals with nonfluent aphasia are able to produce many words in isolation, but have great difficulty producing sentences. Most research to date has compared accuracy across different types of sentence structures, focussing on grammatical aspects that may be compromised in nonfluent aphasia. However, based on the premise that lexical elements activate their associated grammatical frames as well as vice versa, lexical content may also be of vital importance. For example, rapid access to lexical elements – particularly ones appearing early in the sentence - may be crucial, especially if the sentence plan is weakly activated or rapidly decaying. The current study investigated the effect of different aspects of lexical content on nonfluent aphasic sentence production. Five participants with nonfluent aphasia, four participants with fluent aphasia and eight controls completed two picture description tasks eliciting subject-verb-object sentences (e.g., the dog is chasing the fox). Based on existing evidence suggesting that common words are accessed more rapidly than rarer ones, Experiment 1 manipulated the frequency of sentence nouns, thereby varying their speed of lexical retrieval by varying the frequency of sentence nouns. Nonfluent participants' accuracy was consistently higher for sentences commencing with a high frequency subject noun, even when errors on those nouns were themselves excluded. This was not the case for the fluent participants. Experiment 2 manipulated the semantic relationship between subject and object nouns. Previous research suggests that phrases containing related words may be challenging for individuals with nonfluent aphasia, possibly because lexical representations are inadequately tied to appropriate structural representations. The nonfluent participants produced sentences less accurately when they contained related lexical items, even when those items were in different noun phrases. The fluent participants exhibited the opposite trend. Finally, the relationship between the patterns observed in Experiment 1 and 2 and lesion location in the aphasic participants was explored by analysing magnetic resonance scans. We discuss the implications of our findings for theoretical accounts of sentence production more generally, and of nonfluent aphasia in particular. More precisely, we propose that individuals with nonfluent aphasia are disproportionately reliant on activated lexical representations to drive the sentence generation process, an idea we call the Content Drives Structure (COST) hypothesis.</p>

Why Can't Individuals with Nonfluent Aphasia Produce Sentences? Exploring the Role of Lexical Availability

<p>Nonfluent aphasia is a language disorder characterised by sparse, fragmented speech. Individuals with this disorder often produce single words accurately (for example, they can name pictured objects), but have great difficulty producing sentences. An important research goal is to understand why sentences are so difficult for these individuals. To produce a sentence, a speaker must not only retrieve its lexical elements, but also integrate them into a grammatically well-formed sentence. Indeed, most research to date has focused on this grammatical integration process. However, recent studies suggest that the noun and/or verb content of the sentence can also be an important determinant of success (e.g., Raymer & Kohen, 2006; Speer & Wilshire, 2014). In this thesis, I explore the role of noun availability on sentence production accuracy using an identity priming paradigm. Participants are asked to describe a pictured event using a single sentence (e.g., “The fish is kissing the turtle”). In the critical condition, an auditory prime word is presented just prior to the picture, which is identical to one of the nouns in the target sentence (e.g., fish). The rationale is that the prime will enhance the availability of its counterpart when the person comes to produce the target sentence. Participants were four individuals with mild nonfluent aphasia, two individuals with fluent aphasia, and six older, healthy controls. Consistent with our hypotheses, the nonfluent participants as a group were more accurate at producing sentences when one of its nouns – either the subject or object - was primed in this way. Importantly, in the primed subject noun condition, these results held even when accuracy on the primed element itself was excluded, suggesting it had a broad effect on sentence production accuracy. The primed nouns had no effect on sentence production accuracy for the fluent individuals or the controls. We interpret these findings within models of sentence production that allow for considerable interplay between the processes of lexical content retrieval and sentence structure generation.</p>