Author: Suzanne MoineauPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aphasia
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
Scientists and practitioners alike have long been interested in the nature of linguistic breakdown in individuals with aphasia. Throughout history, the predominant approach to classifying features of this disorder has been one of discrete categorization in a number of domains of processing. There has been an abundance of empirical evidence, however, to support claims that behaviors are more adequately viewed as continuous, and that processing in one domain is correlated to processing in other domains within the linguistic structure. Nonetheless, we continue to discuss functions as being impaired or remaining intact after injury, as if these were discrete states. Moreover, we look for these patterns both within and across domains as a way to try to distinguish one group of aphasic individuals from another. The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature of lexical comprehension in individuals with aphasia. In particular, this work challenges claims that lexical function remains intact in certain populations of aphasics by examining lexical processing under degraded conditions. Two different types of exogenous stressors (low-pass filtering and time compression), and a combination of both were used in order to explore the differential impact on processing in the linguistic domain. These stressors, which are common conditions experienced in real world processing, and have also been claimed to mimic conditions often present in aging adults (hearing loss and cognitive slowing) are particularly interesting to explore in aphasic populations to get a better sense of what processing looks like under typical conditions. Additionally, this work aimed to explore the relationship between lexical and sentential processing in order to better understand the nature of breakdown across linguistic levels. The goal here was to investigate whether or not deficits are present in one domain with a sparing of functions in another. Results suggest that all aphasic individuals, irrespective of classification type, are vulnerable to breakdowns in lexical comprehension as compared to older adults when they are processing in less-than-optimal conditions. Furthermore, there was no evidence for a dissociation between levels of the linguistic system as performance at the lexical level was predictive of performance at the sentence level.