Syntactic aspects of impaired speech in interface with prosody and information structure

This paper aims at studying how the syntactic component of language develops in the speech of people with Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia in interface with prosody and informational structure. The data consists of two short interviews in English with aphasic patients. Broca’s aphasia is characterized by the difficulty in processing and producing syntactic structures. In Wernicke’s aphasia, the semantic component is affected, which ends up generating a disconnected and meaningless speech. It was found that in Broca’s aphasia the patient marked some heads of English in final position – as head-final similar to languages like Japanese – instead of head-first, a common parameter of English. In Wernicke’s aphasia, there were some inadequacies in the use of adjuncts and complements that resulted in semantic anomalies.

Analysis of Real-World Language Use in a Person With Wernicke's Aphasia

Purpose In this study, we evaluate the use of a technology called the Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA) Pro System to quantify the language of a participant with severe Wernicke's aphasia in their home environment. We aimed to characterize language use at home, particularly as it changed in response to an intensive aphasia treatment. Method The participant was trained to use a wearable recording device pre and post 30 hr of intensive aphasia treatment. LENA software was used to process the language data and to determine word counts and conversational turns and compared to manual analysis. Various communication variables were coded for all conversation samples. Results The participant operated the device independently and provided 30 hr of recordings for analysis. Posttreatment, the participant demonstrated a 78.4% increase in adult word count, a 27.5% increase in conversational turn count, an increase in the number of communication partners, and in the diversity of communication environments. There was a 26% decrease in the amount of time spent on electronics and a 140% increase in the number of instances conversing in a social setting. Manual and automated measures showed poor agreement for this particular participant. Conclusions In this study, we establish the feasibility of using LENA to collect language samples in a participant with severe Wernicke's aphasia in their home environment. Using this method, we were able to characterize and quantify language samples in multiple dimensions before and after language treatment.

The Analysis of Semantic Field in Persian-Speaking Patients With Wernicke’s Aphasia

Objectives: Wernicke’s aphasia is one of the most prominent focal brain deficits affecting the comprehension abilities of patients while preserving their production abilities. Although a lot of studies in different languages have been conducted to analyze the nature of this deficit, still some controversies exist in this regard. While some research studies attribute this defect to a performance problem, some research highlight competence deficit and hypothesize qualitative problems. This research, considering the lack of sufficient literature in Persian, tries to reconcile this controversy by investigating the nature of the semantic field in Persian-speaking patients with Wernicke’s aphasia and to compare their semantic processing abilities with those of healthy controls. Methods: In doing so, a semantic judgment task was administered to 10 patients with Wernicke’s aphasia and their age- and education-matched controls to recognize different semantic relations between a group of words whose meanings were related to each other in some way or another. Results: The results showed dissociation in the subjects’ performance. While patients with Wernicke’s aphasia had severe deficits in semantic judgment tasks, healthy control performed very well. This selective performance was also observed in different semantic pairs. Also, patients with Wernicke’s aphasia performed poorly in almost all classes of semantic pairs, but the severity of their problems was more prominent in certain semantic categories. Discussion: The findings, in line with a competence deficit hypothesis, suggest that linguistic items are processed in the mental lexicon as a semantic unit. Hence, linguistic items are categorized in a brain network correlating with each other based on different semantic relationships.

COMPARISON OF VISUAL ACTION THERAPY AND AUDITORY COMPREHENSION THERAPY FOR LANGUAGE FUNCTIONS IN PATIENTS WITH WERNECK’S APHASIA

Objective: to compare the effectiveness of visual action therapy (VAT) and auditory compression training (ACT) for language functions in patients with Wernicke Aphasia. Methodology: A Pilot Randomized Clinical trial was conducted. Patients with age range of 30- 60 years with neurological impairments and aphasia were included in the study. The participants n=12 were recruited through purposive sampling technique and randomly divided in to two groups through lottery method. One group received visual action therapy while other group received auditory comprehensive training. Each participant in both groups received three sessions per week in their homes for a time period of 10 weeks. The data were collected through Western Aphasic Battery (WAB). Results: The Mean of age of study participant in VAT and ACT as 51.83±7.83 and 60.3±2.05 respectively. In this study significant improvement has been observed after 10 weeks of intervention in visual action therapy group (p<0.05). Conclusion: It is concluded from the results that VAT significantly improved the western aphasic battery scoring and comprehension skills in patient with Wernicke’s aphasia. Key words: Auditory comprehension therapy, visual action therapy, Wernicke aphasia

Development of Computer-Aided Semi-Automatic Diagnosis System for Chronic Post-Stroke Aphasia Classification with Temporal and Parietal Lesions: A Pilot Study

Survivors of either a hemorrhagic or ischemic stroke tend to acquire aphasia and experience spontaneous recovery during the first six months. Nevertheless, a considerable number of patients sustain aphasia and require speech and language therapy to overcome the difficulties. As a preliminary study, this article aims to distinguish aphasia caused from a temporoparietal lesion. Typically, temporal and parietal lesions cause Wernicke’s aphasia and Anomic aphasia. Differential diagnosis between Anomic and Wernicke’s has become controversial and subjective due to the close resemblance of Wernicke’s to Anomic aphasia when recovering. Hence, this article proposes a clinical diagnosis system that incorporates normal coupling between the acoustic frequencies of speech signals and the language ability of temporoparietal aphasias to delineate classification boundary lines. The proposed inspection system is a hybrid scheme consisting of automated components, such as confrontation naming, repetition, and a manual component, such as comprehension. The study was conducted involving 30 participants clinically diagnosed with temporoparietal aphasias after a stroke and 30 participants who had experienced a stroke without aphasia. The plausibility of accurate classification of Wernicke’s and Anomic aphasia was confirmed using the distinctive acoustic frequency profiles of selected controls. Accuracy of the proposed system and algorithm was confirmed by comparing the obtained diagnosis with the conventional manual diagnosis. Though this preliminary work distinguishes between Anomic and Wernicke’s aphasia, we can claim that the developed algorithm-based inspection model could be a worthwhile solution towards objective classification of other aphasia types.