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Angelopoulou G, Kasselimis D, Goutsos D, Potagas C. A Methodological Approach to Quantifying Silent Pauses, Speech Rate, and Articulation Rate across Distinct Narrative Tasks: Introducing the Connected Speech Analysis Protocol (CSAP). Brain Sci 2024; 14:466. [PMID: 38790445 PMCID: PMC11119743 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci14050466] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2024] [Revised: 04/24/2024] [Accepted: 04/24/2024] [Indexed: 05/26/2024] Open
Abstract
The examination of connected speech may serve as a valuable tool for exploring speech output in both healthy speakers and individuals with language disorders. Numerous studies incorporate various fluency and silence measures into their analyses to investigate speech output patterns in different populations, along with the underlying cognitive processes that occur while speaking. However, methodological inconsistencies across existing studies pose challenges in comparing their results. In the current study, we introduce CSAP (Connected Speech Analysis Protocol), which is a specific methodological approach to investigate fluency metrics, such as articulation rate and speech rate, as well as silence measures, including silent pauses' frequency and duration. We emphasize the importance of employing a comprehensive set of measures within a specific methodological framework to better understand speech output patterns. Additionally, we advocate for the use of distinct narrative tasks for a thorough investigation of speech output in different conditions. We provide an example of data on which we implement CSAP to showcase the proposed pipeline. In conclusion, CSAP offers a comprehensive framework for investigating speech output patterns, incorporating fluency metrics and silence measures in distinct narrative tasks, thus allowing a detailed quantification of connected speech in both healthy and clinical populations. We emphasize the significance of adopting a unified methodological approach in connected speech studies, enabling the integration of results for more robust and generalizable conclusions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Georgia Angelopoulou
- Neuropsychology & Language Disorders Unit, 1st Neurology Department, Eginition Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 115 28 Athens, Greece; (G.A.); (D.K.)
| | - Dimitrios Kasselimis
- Neuropsychology & Language Disorders Unit, 1st Neurology Department, Eginition Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 115 28 Athens, Greece; (G.A.); (D.K.)
- Department of Psychology, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, 176 71 Athens, Greece
| | - Dionysios Goutsos
- Department of Linguistics, School of Philosophy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 106 79 Athens, Greece
| | - Constantin Potagas
- Neuropsychology & Language Disorders Unit, 1st Neurology Department, Eginition Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 115 28 Athens, Greece; (G.A.); (D.K.)
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Angelopoulou G, Kasselimis D, Varkanitsa M, Tsolakopoulos D, Papageorgiou G, Velonakis G, Meier E, Karavassilis E, Pantoleon V, Laskaris N, Kelekis N, Tountopoulou A, Vassilopoulou S, Goutsos D, Kiran S, Weiller C, Rijntjes M, Potagas C. Investigating silent pauses in connected speech: integrating linguistic, neuropsychological, and neuroanatomical perspectives across narrative tasks in post-stroke aphasia. Front Neurol 2024; 15:1347514. [PMID: 38682034 PMCID: PMC11047180 DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2024.1347514] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2023] [Accepted: 03/07/2024] [Indexed: 05/01/2024] Open
Abstract
Introduction Silent pauses are regarded as integral components of the temporal organization of speech. However, it has also been hypothesized that they serve as markers for internal cognitive processes, including word access, monitoring, planning, and memory functions. Although existing evidence across various pathological populations underscores the importance of investigating silent pauses' characteristics, particularly in terms of frequency and duration, there is a scarcity of data within the domain of post-stroke aphasia. Methods The primary objective of the present study is to scrutinize the frequency and duration of silent pauses in two distinct narrative tasks within a cohort of 32 patients with chronic post-stroke aphasia, in comparison with a control group of healthy speakers. Subsequently, we investigate potential correlation patterns between silent pause measures, i.e., frequency and duration, across the two narrative tasks within the patient group, their performance in neuropsychological assessments, and lesion data. Results Our findings showed that patients exhibited a higher frequency of longer-duration pauses in both narrative tasks compared to healthy speakers. Furthermore, within-group comparisons revealed that patients tended to pause more frequently and for longer durations in the picture description task, while healthy participants exhibited the opposite trend. With regard to our second research question, a marginally significant interaction emerged between performance in semantic verbal fluency and the narrative task, in relation to the location of silent pauses-whether between or within clauses-predicting the duration of silent pauses in the patient group. However, no significant results were observed for the frequency of silent pauses. Lastly, our study identified that the duration of silent pauses could be predicted by distinct Regions of Interest (ROIs) in spared tissue within the left hemisphere, as a function of the narrative task. Discussion Overall, this study follows an integrative approach of linguistic, neuropsychological and neuroanatomical data to define silent pauses in connected speech, and illustrates interrelations between cognitive components, temporal aspects of speech, and anatomical indices, while it further highlights the importance of studying connected speech indices using different narrative tasks.
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Affiliation(s)
- G. Angelopoulou
- Neuropsychology&Language Disorders Unit, 1st Department of Neurology, Eginition Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - D. Kasselimis
- Neuropsychology&Language Disorders Unit, 1st Department of Neurology, Eginition Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
- Department of Psychology, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens, Greece
| | - M. Varkanitsa
- Center for Brain Recovery, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - D. Tsolakopoulos
- Neuropsychology&Language Disorders Unit, 1st Department of Neurology, Eginition Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - G. Papageorgiou
- Neuropsychology&Language Disorders Unit, 1st Department of Neurology, Eginition Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - G. Velonakis
- 2nd Department of Radiology, General University Hospital “Attikon”, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - E. Meier
- The Aphasia Network Lab, Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - E. Karavassilis
- 2nd Department of Radiology, General University Hospital “Attikon”, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
- School of Medicine, Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Greece
| | - V. Pantoleon
- 2nd Department of Radiology, General University Hospital “Attikon”, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - N. Laskaris
- Neuropsychology&Language Disorders Unit, 1st Department of Neurology, Eginition Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
- Department of Industrial Design and Production Engineering, School of Engineering, University of West Attica, Athens, Greece
| | - N. Kelekis
- 2nd Department of Radiology, General University Hospital “Attikon”, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - A. Tountopoulou
- Stroke Unit, 1st Department of Neurology, Eginition Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - S. Vassilopoulou
- Stroke Unit, 1st Department of Neurology, Eginition Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - D. Goutsos
- Department of Linguistics, School of Philosophy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - S. Kiran
- Center for Brain Recovery, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - C. Weiller
- Department of Neurology and Clinical Neuroscience, University Hospital Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
| | - M. Rijntjes
- Department of Neurology and Clinical Neuroscience, University Hospital Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
| | - C. Potagas
- Neuropsychology&Language Disorders Unit, 1st Department of Neurology, Eginition Hospital, Faculty of Medicine, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
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Deng BM, Gao J, Liang LS, Zhao JX, Lin F, Yin MY, Zheng HQ, Hu XQ. Discourse Task Type-Specific Linguistic Characteristics in Anomic Aphasia and Healthy Controls: Evidence From Mandarin-Chinese AphasiaBank. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2024; 33:937-951. [PMID: 38266215 DOI: 10.1044/2023_ajslp-23-00078] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/26/2024]
Abstract
PURPOSE This study was designed to examine the hypothesis that discourse task types influence language performance in Mandarin Chinese-speaking people and to reveal the discourse task-specific linguistic properties of persons with anomic aphasia compared to neurotypical controls. METHOD Language samples from persons with aphasia (n = 31) and age- and education-matched controls (n = 31) across four discourse tasks (sequential-picture description, single-picture description, story narrative, and procedural discourse) were collected from Mandarin AphasiaBank. Task-specific distributions of parts of speech were analyzed using mosaic plots. The main effects of tasks in each group and the between-group differences within each task for several typical linguistic variables were evaluated, including the mean length of utterance, tokens, moving-average type-token ratio, words per minute, propositional density, noun-verb ratio, noun percentage, and verb percentage. RESULTS The results revealed an impact of discourse tasks on most language variables in both groups. In the healthy controls, story narratives yielded the highest total words and lowest verb percentage. In the aphasia group, procedural discourse elicited the fewest total words and densest expressions, whereas their single-picture descriptions had the highest noun-verb ratio. For all tasks, the aphasia group performed worse than the control group in the mean length of utterance, tokens, moving-average type-token ratio, and words per minute. For noun-verb ratio, noun percentage, and verb percentage, only one task (i.e., single-picture description) showed significant between-group differences. CONCLUSION The selection of discourse tasks should be addressed in assessments and interventions for Mandarin Chinese-speaking individuals with aphasia to obtain more accurate and feasible outcomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bao-Mei Deng
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Jing Gao
- School of Rehabilitation Medicine, Nanjing Medical University, Jiangsu, China
- Sir Run Run Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Jiangsu, China
| | - Li-Si Liang
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Jia-Xin Zhao
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Feng Lin
- School of Rehabilitation Medicine, Nanjing Medical University, Jiangsu, China
| | - Ming-Yu Yin
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Hai-Qing Zheng
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
| | - Xi-Quan Hu
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China
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Sandoz M, Iglesias K, Achim AM, Fossard M. The contribution of discursive and cognitive factors in referential choices made by elderly people during a narrative task. NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENT, AND COGNITION. SECTION B, AGING, NEUROPSYCHOLOGY AND COGNITION 2024; 31:301-322. [PMID: 36602178 DOI: 10.1080/13825585.2022.2150141] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/17/2022] [Accepted: 11/16/2022] [Indexed: 01/06/2023]
Abstract
The present study focuses on referential choices made by healthy aged adults during narrative discourse, and their relationship with cognitive and socio-cognitive abilities. Previously, some studies have shown that, compared to young adults, older adults produce more pronouns when referring to various entities during discourse, regardless of the accessibility level of the referent for the addressee. This referential behavior has been interpreted in relation to the decrease of cognitive abilities, such as working memory abilities. There is, as of yet, little empirical evidence highlighting which cognitive competences preferentially support referential choices during discourse production. Here, we focus on three categories of referential markers (indefinite, definite markers and pronouns) produced by 78 participants from 60 to 91 years old. We used a storytelling task enabling us to examine the referential choices made at three discourse stages (introduction, maintaining or shift of the referent in focus) and in increasing levels of referential complexity (one vs two characters, and different vs same gender). In addition to specifically assessing how increasing age influences referential choices, we also examine the contribution of various cognitive and socio-cognitive skills that are presumed to play a specific role in referential choices. We found that both age and specific cognitive abilities (planification, inhibition, and verbal episodic memory) had an effect on referential choices, but that these effects depended on when (at which discourse stage) the referential markers were produced. Overall, our study highlights the complex interplay between discursive and cognitive factors in referential choices made by healthy older speakers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mélanie Sandoz
- Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Institut des Sciences Logopédiques, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel,Switzerland
| | - Katia Iglesias
- School of Health Sciences (HEdS-FR), HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland, Fribourg, Switzerland
| | - Amélie M Achim
- Département de Psychiatrie et Neurosciences, Centre de Recherche CERVO and Centre de Recherche VITAM, Université Laval,Québec, QC, Canada
| | - Marion Fossard
- Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Institut des Sciences Logopédiques, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel,Switzerland
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Ding J, Middleton EL, Mirman D. Impaired discourse content in aphasia is associated with frontal white matter damage. Brain Commun 2023; 5:fcad310. [PMID: 38025278 PMCID: PMC10664411 DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcad310] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/23/2022] [Revised: 09/04/2023] [Accepted: 11/09/2023] [Indexed: 12/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Aphasia is a common consequence of stroke with severe impacts on employability, social interactions and quality of life. Producing discourse-relevant information in a real-world setting is the most important aspect of recovery because it is critical to successful communication. This study sought to identify the lesion correlates of impaired production of relevant information in spoken discourse in a large, unselected sample of participants with post-stroke aphasia. Spoken discourse (n = 80) and structural brain scans (n = 66) from participants with aphasia following left hemisphere stroke were analysed. Each participant provided 10 samples of spoken discourse elicited in three different genres, and 'correct information unit' analysis was used to quantify the informativeness of speech samples. The lesion correlates were identified using multivariate lesion-symptom mapping, voxel-wise disconnection and tract-wise analyses. Amount and speed of relevant information were highly correlated across different genres and with total lesion size. The analyses of lesion correlates converged on the same pattern: impaired production of relevant information was associated with damage to anterior dorsal white matter pathways, specifically the arcuate fasciculus, frontal aslant tract and superior longitudinal fasciculus. Damage to these pathways may be a useful biomarker for impaired informative spoken discourse and informs development of neurorehabilitation strategies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Junhua Ding
- Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, UK
| | | | - Daniel Mirman
- Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, UK
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Park H, Obermeyer J, Kornisch M, Hall J, Ontario C. Semantic Aspects of Verb Production in Various Discourse Tasks in People With Nonfluent Aphasia. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2023; 32:2418-2429. [PMID: 37353224 DOI: 10.1044/2023_ajslp-22-00293] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/25/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to investigate how people with nonfluent aphasia produce semantically weighted verbs compared to people without aphasia, as well as how a discourse elicitation task affects verb production in people with nonfluent aphasia and people without aphasia. METHOD This study included 30 people with nonfluent aphasia and 32 age-matched people without aphasia from AphasiaBank. Language samples of five different discourse tasks were obtained and coded for heavy, light, and be-copular verbs. The number of verbs per utterance and the proportion of heavy, light, and be-copular verbs were compared between groups and between tasks. RESULTS People with nonfluent aphasia showed a similar proportion of heavy verbs but reduced verbs per utterance and proportion of light verbs compared to people without aphasia. With regard to discourse task effects, we found a trend for a higher proportion of heavy verbs in sequential picture descriptions, and a higher proportion of be-copular verbs and lower proportion of heavy verbs for a recount compared to other tasks in people without aphasia. The discourse task effects were minimally found in people with nonfluent aphasia. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that people with nonfluent aphasia present with relatively preserved heavy verb production but with impaired production of light verbs in discourse. In addition, it appears that discourse tasks do not significantly influence the type of verbs produced by people with nonfluent aphasia possibly due to the floor effects and wide range of individual variability. This study is a preliminary effort to evaluate methodological factors that impact verb production; future studies are needed to develop a framework for clinical decision making when selecting a discourse elicitation task for people with aphasia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hyejin Park
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Mississippi, Oxford
| | - Jessica Obermeyer
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
| | - Myriam Kornisch
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Mississippi, Oxford
| | - Jessica Hall
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Memphis, TN
| | - Chase Ontario
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Florida, Tampa
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Naranjo NP, Del Río D, Nieva S, Alted CG. Descriptive discourse in fluent aphasia: The predictive role of attention, phonology, lexical retrieval and semantics. JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION DISORDERS 2023; 104:106335. [PMID: 37216892 DOI: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2023.106335] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/10/2022] [Revised: 04/28/2023] [Accepted: 05/09/2023] [Indexed: 05/24/2023]
Abstract
AIMS To study the relationship between cognitive and linguistic skills (as measured through standardized tasks) over spontaneous speech elicited during a picture description task. METHODS & PROCEDURES 21 controls and 19 people with fluent aphasia matched by age and sex were evaluated using transcripts made from a picture description task coded using the CHAT format and analyzed using Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN). Indices obtained from the speech samples contained measures of lexical quantity and diversity, morphosyntactic complexity, informativeness, and speech fluency, along with different kinds of speech errors. We studied their correlations with attentional measures from Conners' Continuous Performance Test and with standardized measures of naming, pseudoword repetition and semantic non-verbal association. We further used stepwise linear regression to analyze the predictive value of standardized linguistic and cognitive skills over discursive indices. OUTCOMES & RESULTS Contrary to our initial hypothesis, there were no significant correlations between attentional scores and discourse variables in aphasic participants. Moreover, semantic association, along with naming, was the measure more related with discourse performance in people with fluent aphasia, but cognitive and linguistic standardized measures had overall little predictive power on most discourse indices. In the control group, there was a certain association of naming skills and attentional reaction time with discourse variables, but their predictive power was also low. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS The current results do not support a strong relationship between basic attentional skills and performance in descriptive discourse in fluent aphasia. Although some of the standardized tasks seem to bear some relationship with spontaneous speech, there is a high amount of interindividual variability in discourse that is not captured by classical cognitive tasks routinely used in assessment. Further work on the determinants of discourse performance in aphasia and on the clinical application of discourse analysis is warranted.
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Affiliation(s)
- Narcisa Pérez Naranjo
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Processes and Speech and Language Therapy. Complutense University. Madrid, Spain.
| | - David Del Río
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Processes and Speech and Language Therapy. Complutense University. Madrid, Spain; Centre for Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience. Complutense University. Madrid, Spain
| | - Silvia Nieva
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Processes and Speech and Language Therapy. Complutense University. Madrid, Spain
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Mazumdar B, Donovan NJ, Duncan ES. Identifying an Appropriate Picture Stimulus for a Bangla Picture Description Task. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2023; 66:1334-1350. [PMID: 36947697 DOI: 10.1044/2022_jslhr-22-00152] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The absence of culture- and language-specific aphasia assessment in Bangla underscores a critical problem in communication sciences and disorders. Aphasia occurs in ~41% of Bangla-speaking stroke survivors. In the past 40 years, stroke incidence has doubled in low- and middle-income countries, such as Bangladesh and India, where there are ~250 million native Bangla speakers. This study aims to initiate the first step toward identifying an appropriate picture stimulus for the Bangla picture description task (PDT) intended for inclusion in a Bangla aphasia assessment. Researchers have reported the importance of cultural relevance and three visuographic variables of a picture (high-context, color, and photograph vs. black-and-white line drawing) for faster comprehension and comprehensive language production in people with aphasia and neurologically healthy adults. METHOD Ninety-six neurologically healthy native Bangla speakers of three age groups (young 19-30, middle age 40-55, and older 65-89 years) were recruited to compare spontaneous language production for four selected culturally related and nonrelated picture stimuli with and without the three visuographic variables. Five linguistic variables were used to analyze the language samples. RESULTS The results demonstrated a significant (a) picture type effect for moving-average type-token ratio, words per minute (WPM), and mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLU) and (b) age group effect for WPM, MLU, and complexity index. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that a culturally related high-context color photograph is the optimal choice for the Bangla PDT. This study also indicates reduced fluency, grammatical complexity, and syntactic complexity in healthy Bangla-speaking adults aged 65 years and above. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.22233664.
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Affiliation(s)
- Barnali Mazumdar
- Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Portland State University, OR
| | - Neila J Donovan
- Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
| | - E Susan Duncan
- Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge
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Marcotte K, Lachance A, Brisebois A, Mazzocca P, Désilets-Barnabé M, Desjardins N, Brambati SM. Validation of Videoconference Administration of Picture Description From the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised in Neurotypical Canadian French Speakers. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2022; 31:2825-2834. [PMID: 36332144 DOI: 10.1044/2022_ajslp-22-00084] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/16/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE During the COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians and researchers have increasingly used remote online assessments to pursue their activities, but mostly with tests not validated for videoconference administration. This study aims to validate the remote online administration of picture description in Canadian French neurotypical speakers and to explore the thematic unit (TU) checklist recently developed. METHOD Spoken discourse elicited through the picture description task of the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised (WAB-R) was collected from Canadian French neurotypical speakers from Québec aged between 50 and 79 years old. Forty-seven participants completed the task in person, and 49 participants completed the task by videoconference. Videos of each discourse sample were transcribed using CHAT conventions. Microstructural variables were extracted using the CLAN (Computerized Language ANalysis) program, whereas thematic informativeness was scored for each sample using TUs. Chi-square tests were conducted to compare both groups on each TU; t tests were also performed on the total score of TUs and microstructural variables. RESULTS Groups were matched on sex, age, and education variables. The t tests revealed no intergroup difference for the total TU score and for the microstructural variables (e.g., mean length of utterances and number of words per minute). Chi-square tests showed no significant intergroup difference for all 16 TUs. CONCLUSIONS These findings support remote online assessment of the picnic scene of the WAB-R picture description in Canadian French neurotypical speakers. These results also validate the 16 TUs most consistently produced. The use of videoconference could promote and improve the recruitment of participants who are usually less accessible, such as people using assistive mobility technologies. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21476961.
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Affiliation(s)
- Karine Marcotte
- École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Centre de recherche du Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Arianne Lachance
- École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Amélie Brisebois
- École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Centre de recherche du Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Patrizia Mazzocca
- École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | | | - Noémie Desjardins
- Centre de recherche du Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Simona Maria Brambati
- Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Département de psychologie, Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
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Kim H, Schoemann AM, Wright HH. Quality of Measurement in Core Lexicon Measures. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2022; 65:2919-2930. [PMID: 35858271 PMCID: PMC9911116 DOI: 10.1044/2022_jslhr-20-00722] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2020] [Revised: 05/17/2021] [Accepted: 04/06/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Core lexicon measures have received growing attention in research. They are intended to provide clinicians with a clinician-friendly means to quantify word retrieval ability in discourse based on normal expectations of discourse production for specific discourse elicitation tasks. To date, different criteria have been used to develop core lexicon measures by groups of researchers. The need for statistical guidance in pursuit of the psychologically robust measure has been recognized. AIMS This study was to investigate the best criterion for accurate measurement. Specifically, we focused on two criteria (frequency vs. percentage) that have previously been used for the development of core lexicon measures. METHOD Core lexicon measures consisting of five different checklists by word class (verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and function words) and developed by the two criteria were applied to language samples produced by 470 cognitively healthy adults. Performance in word retrieval ability at the discourse level was modeled as a latent variable based on the observed proportions of the production of core lexicon items in two different sets of core lexicon measures using structural equation modeling. RESULTS Results indicated that both criterion for core lexicon measures capture word retrieval ability in discourse. Greater residual variances were found in the core lexicon measure established by the percentage criterion compared to the one established by the frequency criterion. This indicates that the measure based on the percentage criterion is more affected by measurement errors. CONCLUSIONS The findings provide evidence that the frequency criterion is better to use for the development of core lexicon measures for core nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, but not for function words. However, our findings are limited to core lexicon measures based on language samples elicited by wordless picture books. This may not be easily applied to other core lexicon measures that use different discourse elicitation tasks due to the difference in quality and quantity of language samples. Ideally, the same approach should be replicated to evaluate the appropriateness of respective criteria in the development of core lexicon measures. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.20304144.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hana Kim
- Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
- Department of Psychology, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
| | | | - Heather Harris Wright
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
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Kintz S, Wright HH. Light verb production in healthy ageing and dementia. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE & COMMUNICATION DISORDERS 2022; 57:796-807. [PMID: 35393738 DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12721] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2021] [Accepted: 02/21/2022] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Light verbs are highly frequent and semantically impoverished words. It is currently not known whether light verb production in discourse tasks differs by age or for people with dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT). AIMS The purpose of the current study was two-fold: (1) to determine whether there is a relationship between age and the proportion of light verbs produce during a narrative discourse task; and (2) to determine whether people with DAT produce a different proportion of light verbs compared with neurotypical adults. METHODS & PROCEDURES A total of 469 neurotypical adults and 12 participants with DAT produced narratives from a wordless picture book. OUTCOME & RESULTS The results indicated that light verb production increases as a function of age, even when controlling for education, and people with DAT produced a higher light verb-word ratio compared with neurotypical adults when matched for age and education. CONCLUSION & IMPLICATION Light verb use may increase as a function of age due to declines in retrieval ability. These declines are not only more pronounced in people with DAT, but also semantic knowledge deficits may contribute to a reliance on light verbs. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS Light verbs are typically some of the first verbs learned due to their simple semantic construction and high frequency. However, two things are unknown: (1) how light verbs changed across the adult lifespan; and (2) whether cognitive impairment changes light verb production. The study found that light verb production increases as a function of age, and that people with DAT used a higher ratio of light verbs to words in a narrative task compared with neurotypical adults. However, despite the findings, more research is needed to determine their clinical utility. Future research may wish to investigate whether light verbs (1) facilitate comprehension in older adults or (2) may be used in cognitive-linguistic assessments for cognitive impairments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stephen Kintz
- Department of Speech Language Pathology, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Little Rock, AR, USA
| | - Heather Harris Wright
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA
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Salis C, DeDe G. Sentence Production in a Discourse Context in Latent Aphasia: A Real-Time Study. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2022; 31:1284-1296. [PMID: 35363996 DOI: 10.1044/2022_ajslp-21-00232] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to improve our understanding as to which factors determine online, spoken sentence production abilities of adults with latent aphasia in a discourse context. METHOD Discourse samples of the story of Cinderella elicited from AphasiaBank were analyzed with speech analysis software. Participants comprised people with latent and anomic aphasia as well as neurotypical controls (10 per group). Durations of pauses (silent and filled) were analyzed according to (a) the location they occurred (between or within sentences), (b) the syntactic complexity of sentences (simple, complex), and (c) sentence length (number of words). Statistical comparisons were conducted using mixed-effect models. RESULTS The two clinical groups (latent and anomic) differed from controls in the duration of pauses, both between and within sentences. Syntactic complexity did not exert an effect on either of the two clinical groups as compared with controls. As compared with controls, both clinical groups paused more before long in comparison with short sentences. CONCLUSION Reduction in processing speed, which affects the ability to simultaneously maintain multiple linguistic and other cognitive demands associated with planning and monitoring of utterances, is a major factor that compromises sentence production in spoken discourse in latent aphasia. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19448726.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christos Salis
- Speech & Language Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
| | - Gayle DeDe
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
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Gordon JK, Clough S. How Do Clinicians Judge Fluency in Aphasia? JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2022; 65:1521-1542. [PMID: 35271379 DOI: 10.1044/2021_jslhr-21-00484] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/14/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE Aphasia fluency is multiply determined by underlying impairments in lexical retrieval, grammatical formulation, and speech production. This poses challenges for establishing a reliable and feasible tool to measure fluency in the clinic. We examine the reliability and validity of perceptual ratings and clinical perspectives on the utility and relevance of methods used to assess fluency. METHOD In an online survey, 112 speech-language pathologists rated spontaneous speech samples from 181 people with aphasia (PwA) on eight perceptual rating scales (overall fluency, speech rate, pausing, effort, melody, phrase length, grammaticality, and lexical retrieval) and answered questions about their current practices for assessing fluency in the clinic. RESULTS Interrater reliability for the eight perceptual rating scales ranged from fair to good. The most reliable scales were speech rate, pausing, and phrase length. Similarly, clinicians' perceived fluency ratings were most strongly correlated to objective measures of speech rate and utterance length but were also related to grammatical complexity, lexical diversity, and phonological errors. Clinicians' ratings reflected expected aphasia subtype patterns: Individuals with Broca's and transcortical motor aphasia were rated below average on fluency, whereas those with anomic, conduction, and Wernicke's aphasia were rated above average. Most respondents reported using multiple methods in the clinic to measure fluency but relying most frequently on subjective judgments. CONCLUSIONS This study lends support for the use of perceptual rating scales as valid assessments of speech-language production but highlights the need for a more reliable method for clinical use. We describe next steps for developing such a tool that is clinically feasible and helps to identify the underlying deficits disrupting fluency to inform treatment targets. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19326419.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jean K Gordon
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Iowa, Iowa City
| | - Sharice Clough
- Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN
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Stark BC, Cofoid C. Task-Specific Iconic Gesturing During Spoken Discourse in Aphasia. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2022; 31:30-47. [PMID: 34033493 PMCID: PMC9135014 DOI: 10.1044/2021_ajslp-20-00271] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/09/2020] [Revised: 11/30/2020] [Accepted: 02/11/2021] [Indexed: 05/26/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE In persons living with aphasia, we will explore the relationship between iconic gesture production during spontaneous speech and discourse task, spoken language, and demographic information. METHOD Employing the AphasiaBank database, we coded iconic gestures in 75 speakers with aphasia during two spoken discourse tasks: a procedural narrative, which involved participants telling the experimenter how to make a sandwich ("Sandwich"), and a picture sequence narrative, which had participants describe the picture sequence to the experimenter ("Window"). Forty-three produced a gesture during both tasks, and we further evaluate data from this subgroup as a more direct comparison between tasks. RESULTS More iconic gestures, at a higher rate, were produced during the procedural narrative. For both tasks, there was a relationship between iconic gesture rate, modeled as iconic gestures per word, and metrics of language dysfluency extracted from the discourse task as well as a metric of fluency extracted from a standardized battery. Iconic gesture production was correlated with aphasia duration, which was driven by performance during only a single task (Window), but not with other demographic metrics, such as aphasia severity or age. We also provide preliminary evidence for task differences shown through the lens of two types of iconic gestures. CONCLUSIONS While speech-language pathologists have utilized gesture in therapy for poststroke aphasia, due to its possible facilitatory role in spoken language, there has been considerably less work in understanding how gesture differs across naturalistic tasks and how we can best utilize this information to better assess gesture in aphasia and improve multimodal treatment for aphasia. Furthermore, our results contribute to gesture theory, particularly, about the role of gesture across naturalistic tasks and its relationship with spoken language. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.14614941.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brielle C. Stark
- Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington
| | - Caroline Cofoid
- Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington
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Boucher J, Brisebois A, Slegers A, Courson M, Désilets-Barnabé M, Chouinard AM, Gbeglo V, Marcotte K, Brambati SM. Picture Description of the Western Aphasia Battery Picnic Scene: Reference Data for the French Canadian Population. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2022; 31:257-270. [PMID: 34735273 DOI: 10.1044/2021_ajslp-20-00388] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The main aim of this study is to provide French Canadian reference data for quantitative measures extracted from connected speech samples elicited by the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised picnic scene, a discourse task frequently used in clinical assessment of acquired language disorders. METHOD Our sample consisted of 62 healthy French Canadian adults divided in two age groups: a 50- to 69-year-old group and a 70- to 90-year-old group. RESULTS High interrater reliability scores were obtained for most of the variables. Most connected speech variables did not demonstrate an age effect. However, the 70- to 90-year-old group produced more repetitions than the 50- to 69-year-old group and displayed reduced communication efficiency (number of information content units per minute). CONCLUSION These findings contribute to building a reference data set to analyze descriptive discourse production in clinical settings.
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Affiliation(s)
- Johémie Boucher
- Département de psychologie, Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Amélie Brisebois
- École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Centre de recherche du Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal (Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur de Montréal), Québec, Canada
| | - Antoine Slegers
- Département de psychologie, Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Melody Courson
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Marianne Désilets-Barnabé
- École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Centre de recherche du Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal (Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur de Montréal), Québec, Canada
| | - Anne-Marie Chouinard
- École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Centre de recherche du Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal (Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur de Montréal), Québec, Canada
| | - Véronika Gbeglo
- Département de psychologie, Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Québec, Canada
| | - Karine Marcotte
- École d'orthophonie et d'audiologie, Faculté de médecine, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Centre de recherche du Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux du Nord-de-l'Île-de-Montréal (Hôpital du Sacré-Cœur de Montréal), Québec, Canada
| | - Simona Maria Brambati
- Département de psychologie, Faculté des arts et des sciences, Université de Montréal, Québec, Canada
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal, Québec, Canada
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Stark BC, Dutta M, Murray LL, Fromm D, Bryant L, Harmon TG, Ramage AE, Roberts AC. Spoken Discourse Assessment and Analysis in Aphasia: An International Survey of Current Practices. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2021; 64:4366-4389. [PMID: 34554878 PMCID: PMC9132151 DOI: 10.1044/2021_jslhr-20-00708] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/03/2023]
Abstract
Purpose Spoken discourse analysis is commonly employed in the assessment and treatment of people living with aphasia, yet there is no standardization in assessment, analysis, or reporting procedures, thereby precluding comparison/meta-analyses of data and hindering replication of findings. An important first step is to identify current practices in collecting and analyzing spoken discourse in aphasia. Thus, this study surveyed current practices, with the goal of working toward standardizing spoken discourse assessment first in research settings with subsequent implementation into clinical settings. Method A mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative) survey was publicized to researchers and clinicians around the globe who have collected and/or analyzed spoken discourse data in aphasia. The survey data were collected between September and November 2019. Results Of the 201 individuals who consented to participate, 189 completed all mandatory questions in the survey (with fewer completing nonmandatory response questions). The majority of respondents reported barriers to utilizing discourse including transcription, coding, and analysis. The most common barrier was time (e.g., lack of time). Respondents also indicated that there was a lack of, and a need for, psychometric properties and normative data for spoken discourse use in the assessment and treatment of persons with aphasia. Quantitative and qualitative results are described in detail. Conclusions The current survey study evaluated spoken discourse methods in aphasia across research and clinical settings. Findings from this study will be used to guide development of process standardization in spoken discourse and for the creation of a psychometric and normative property database. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.166395100.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brielle C. Stark
- Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences and Program in Neuroscience, Cognitive Science Program, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
| | - Manaswita Dutta
- Department of Communication Disorders and Sciences, Rush University, Chicago, IL
| | - Laura L. Murray
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Western University, London, CA
| | - Davida Fromm
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
| | - Lucy Bryant
- Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Tyson G. Harmon
- Department of Communication Disorders, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT
| | - Amy E. Ramage
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of New Hampshire, Durham
| | - Angela C. Roberts
- Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
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Jongman SR, Khoe YH, Hintz F. Vocabulary Size Influences Spontaneous Speech in Native Language Users: Validating the Use of Automatic Speech Recognition in Individual Differences Research. LANGUAGE AND SPEECH 2021; 64:35-51. [PMID: 32223517 DOI: 10.1177/0023830920911079] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Previous research has shown that vocabulary size affects performance on laboratory word production tasks. Individuals who know many words show faster lexical access and retrieve more words belonging to pre-specified categories than individuals who know fewer words. The present study examined the relationship between receptive vocabulary size and speaking skills as assessed in a natural sentence production task. We asked whether measures derived from spontaneous responses to everyday questions correlate with the size of participants' vocabulary. Moreover, we assessed the suitability of automatic speech recognition (ASR) for the analysis of participants' responses in complex language production data. We found that vocabulary size predicted indices of spontaneous speech: individuals with a larger vocabulary produced more words and had a higher speech-silence ratio compared to individuals with a smaller vocabulary. Importantly, these relationships were reliably identified using manual and automated transcription methods. Taken together, our results suggest that spontaneous speech elicitation is a useful method to investigate natural language production and that automatic speech recognition can alleviate the burden of labor-intensive speech transcription.
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Affiliation(s)
- Suzanne R Jongman
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA
| | - Yung Han Khoe
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
- Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Florian Hintz
- Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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Stark BC, Dutta M, Murray LL, Bryant L, Fromm D, MacWhinney B, Ramage AE, Roberts A, den Ouden DB, Brock K, McKinney-Bock K, Paek EJ, Harmon TG, Yoon SO, Themistocleous C, Yoo H, Aveni K, Gutierrez S, Sharma S. Standardizing Assessment of Spoken Discourse in Aphasia: A Working Group With Deliverables. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2021; 30:491-502. [PMID: 32585117 PMCID: PMC9128722 DOI: 10.1044/2020_ajslp-19-00093] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/14/2023]
Abstract
Purpose The heterogeneous nature of measures, methods, and analyses reported in the aphasia spoken discourse literature precludes comparison of outcomes across studies (e.g., meta-analyses) and inhibits replication. Furthermore, funding and time constraints significantly hinder collecting test-retest data on spoken discourse outcomes. This research note describes the development and structure of a working group, designed to address major gaps in the spoken discourse aphasia literature, including a lack of standardization in methodology, analysis, and reporting, as well as nominal data regarding the psychometric properties of spoken discourse outcomes. Method The initial initiatives for this working group are to (a) propose recommendations regarding standardization of spoken discourse collection, analysis, and reporting in aphasia, based on the results of an international survey and a systematic literature review and (b) create a database of test-retest spoken discourse data from individuals with and without aphasia. The survey of spoken discourse collection, analysis, and interpretation procedures was distributed to clinicians and researchers involved in aphasia assessment and rehabilitation from September to November 2019. We will publish survey results and recommend standards for collecting, analyzing, and reporting spoken discourse in aphasia. A multisite endeavor to collect test-retest spoken discourse data from individuals with and without aphasia will be initiated. This test-retest information will be contributed to a central site for transcription and analysis, and data will be subsequently openly curated. Conclusion The goal of the working group is to create recommendations for field-wide standards in methods, analysis, and reporting of spoken discourse outcomes, as has been done across other related disciplines (e.g., Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials, Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research, Committee on Best Practice in Data Analysis and Sharing). Additionally, the creation of a database through our multisite collaboration will allow the identification of psychometrically sound outcome measures and norms that can be used by clinicians and researchers to assess spoken discourse abilities in aphasia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brielle C. Stark
- Department of Speech, Hearing and Language Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington
- Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University Bloomington
| | - Manaswita Dutta
- Department of Speech, Hearing and Language Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington
| | - Laura L. Murray
- School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
| | - Lucy Bryant
- Graduate School of Health, University of Technology Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
| | - Davida Fromm
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
| | - Brian MacWhinney
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
| | - Amy E. Ramage
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of New Hampshire, Durham
| | - Angela Roberts
- Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
| | - Dirk B. den Ouden
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Columbia
| | - Kris Brock
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Idaho State University, Pocatello
| | - Katy McKinney-Bock
- Center for Spoken Language Understanding, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland
| | - Eun Jin Paek
- Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Knoxville
| | - Tyson G. Harmon
- Department of Communication Disorders, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT
| | - Si On Yoon
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Iowa, Iowa City
| | | | - Hyunsoo Yoo
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Baylor University, Waco, TX
| | - Katharine Aveni
- Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
| | - Stephanie Gutierrez
- Roxelyn and Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
| | - Saryu Sharma
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
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Kim H, Kintz S, Wright HH. Development of a measure of function word use in narrative discourse: core lexicon analysis in aphasia. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE & COMMUNICATION DISORDERS 2021; 56:6-19. [PMID: 32909656 PMCID: PMC7902380 DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12567] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2019] [Revised: 07/09/2020] [Accepted: 07/27/2020] [Indexed: 05/31/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Although discourse-level assessments contribute to predicting real-world performance in persons with aphasia (PWA), the use of discourse measures is uncommon in clinical settings due to resource-heavy procedures. Moreover, assessing function word use in discourse requires the arduous procedure of defining grammatical categories for each word in language transcripts. AIMS The purpose of this exploratory study was twofold: (1) to develop core function word lists as a clinician-friendly means of evaluating function word use in discourse; and (2) to examine the ability of the core function word measure to differentiate PWA from cognitively healthy adults and persons with fluent aphasia from non-fluent aphasia. METHODS & PROCEDURES The 25 most commonly used function words (core function words) were extracted from narrative language samples from 470 cognitively healthy adults, which were divided into seven age groups (20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s). The percent agreement of core function words for 11 PWA (fluent aphasia = 5; non-fluent aphasia = 6) and 11 age- and education-matched controls were then calculated. Percent agreement for the core function words produced was compared between the controls and the PWA group, and between participants with fluent aphasia and non-fluent aphasia. OUTCOMES & RESULTS The results indicated that PWA produced fewer core function words from the lists than the control group, and that core function word use was strongly correlated with aphasia severity. Persons with non-fluent aphasia produced fewer core function words than those with fluent aphasia, although this could be a confound of aphasia classification from the use of the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB)-Revised. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS Core function word lists consisting of a limited number of items for quantifying function word use in discourse remain in a nascent stage of development. However, the findings are consistent with previous studies analysing the total production of function words in language samples produced by PWA. Therefore, core function words may potentially serve as a clinician-friendly manner of quantifying function words produced in discourse. What this paper adds What is already known on the subject Function word analysis in discourse requires arduous processes of identifying the error production and grammatical category of function words in discourse. Previous studies have demonstrated that core lexicon measures are an efficient, simple means of quantifying discourse in PWA. However, function words have never been considered for generating an independent core lexicon list. What this paper adds to existing knowledge As an exploratory study, we focused primarily on developing a clinician-friendly measure to evaluate function word production in discourse, motivated by the idea of an adaptation strategy within the core lexicon framework. Our findings demonstrated that by using a simple scoring system that the core lexicon measure provides, we differentiated the control group from the PWA group, and persons with fluent aphasia from persons with non-fluent aphasia. Additionally, we found significant correlations between function word production and aphasia severity determined by WAB Aphasia Quotient (AQ). What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The results add empirical evidence for the utility of core function word lists for quantifying function word usage in discourse in PWA. Counting the presence and absence of function words in discourse will allow clinicians to avoid labour-intensive preparatory work, and to obtain useful diagnostic information in a less time-consuming way.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hana Kim
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA
| | - Stephen Kintz
- Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology, University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AK, USA
| | - Heather Harris Wright
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA
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Greenslade KJ, Stuart JEB, Richardson JD, Dalton SG, Ramage AE. Macrostructural Analyses of Cinderella Narratives in a Large Nonclinical Sample. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2020; 29:1923-1936. [PMID: 32924890 PMCID: PMC8740559 DOI: 10.1044/2020_ajslp-19-00151] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2019] [Revised: 03/15/2020] [Accepted: 05/20/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Purpose Macrostructural narrative analyses are important clinical measures, revealing age-related declines and disorder-related impairments in the accuracy, completeness, logical sequencing, and organization of content. The current study aims to provide preliminary data on typical aging and psychometric evidence supporting multilevel Main Concept, Sequencing, and Story Grammar (MSSG) analyses that capture these aspects of narratives. Method Transcripts of Cinderella narratives for 92 healthy control participants stratified across four age brackets from the online database AphasiaBank were coded by Richardson and Dalton (2016) for main concept (MC) analysis. In the current study, MSSG analyses were completed for (a) logical sequencing, independently and in combination with MC accuracy and completeness (MC + sequencing), and (b) story grammar organization (i.e., inclusion of episodic components and complexity of episodes). Interrater agreement (99%-100%) revealed highly reliable scoring. Results Descriptive statistics for the typically aging sample are presented for sequencing, MC + sequencing, total episodic components, and episodic complexity. Scores for participants over 60 years of age were lower (poorer) than scores for those 20-59 years of age, supporting the construct validity of score use for identifying age-related declines in performance. Conclusions This study's novel MSSG analyses of narrative production efficiently assess the logical sequencing and story grammar organization of content in healthy controls. Preliminary reliability and validity evidence support the use of all scores to measure age-related changes in narrative macrostructure. Data from this typically aging sample provide a foundation for future research and clinical assessment aimed at quantifying narrative deficits in adults with communication disorders. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12683495.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kathryn J. Greenslade
- Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of New Hampshire, Durham
| | - Jade E. B. Stuart
- Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of New Hampshire, Durham
| | | | - Sarah Grace Dalton
- Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI
| | - Amy E. Ramage
- Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of New Hampshire, Durham
- Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience and Behavior, University of New Hampshire, Durham
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Kim H, Wright HH. Concurrent Validity and Reliability of the Core Lexicon Measure as a Measure of Word Retrieval Ability in Aphasia Narratives. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2020; 29:101-110. [PMID: 31693384 PMCID: PMC7231912 DOI: 10.1044/2019_ajslp-19-0063] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/27/2019] [Revised: 06/27/2019] [Accepted: 08/02/2019] [Indexed: 05/19/2023]
Abstract
Purpose General agreement exists in the literature that clinicians struggle with quantifying discourse-level performance in clinical settings. Core lexicon analysis has gained recent attention as an alternative tool that may address difficulties that clinicians face. Although previous studies have demonstrated that core lexicon measures are an efficient means of assessing discourse in persons with aphasia (PWAs), the psychometric properties of core lexicon measures have yet to be investigated. The purpose of this study was (a) to examine the concurrent validity by using microlinguistic and macrolinguistic measures and (b) to demonstrate interrater reliability without transcription by raters with minimal training. Method Eleven language samples collected from PWAs were used in this study. Concurrent validity was assessed by correlating performance on the core lexicon measure with microlinguistic and macrolinguistic measures. For interrater reliability, 4 raters used the core lexicon checklists to score audio-recorded discourse samples from 10 PWAs. Results The core lexicon measures significantly correlated with microlinguistic and macrolinguistic measures. Acceptable interrater reliability was obtained among the 4 raters. Conclusions Core lexicon analysis is potentially useful for measuring word retrieval impairments at the discourse level. It may also be a feasible solution because it reduces the amount of preparatory work for discourse assessment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hana Kim
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
| | - Heather Harris Wright
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
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Angelopoulou G, Meier EL, Kasselimis D, Pan Y, Tsolakopoulos D, Velonakis G, Karavasilis E, Kelekis NL, Goutsos D, Potagas C, Kiran S. Investigating Gray and White Matter Structural Substrates of Sex Differences in the Narrative Abilities of Healthy Adults. Front Neurosci 2020; 13:1424. [PMID: 32063823 PMCID: PMC7000661 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2019.01424] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/21/2019] [Accepted: 12/16/2019] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Linguistic aspects of narration have been investigated in healthy populations, in a wide variety of languages and speech genres with very different results. There is some evidence indicating that linguistic elements, such as speech rate (i.e., the measure indicating the amount of speech produced in a certain time period), mean length of utterance (MLU) (i.e., the index reflecting sentence grammatical structure), frequency of nouns and verbs, might be affected by non-linguistic factors such as sex. On the other hand, despite the existence of neuroimaging evidence of structural differences between males and females, it is yet unknown how such differences could explain between-sex disparities in linguistic abilities in natural speech contexts. To date, no study has evaluated discourse production elements in relation to sex differences and their neural correlates in terms of brain structure, a topic that could provide unique insights on the relationship between language and the brain. The aim of the present study was to determine sex differences in narrative skills in healthy adults and to investigate white and gray matter structural correlates of linguistic skills in each group. Twenty-seven male and 30 female (N = 57) right-handed, neurologically intact, monolingual Greek speakers, matched for age and years of education, participated. Narrations of a personal medical event were elicited. Linguistic elements of speech rate (words per minute), MLUs, frequency of nouns and verbs were calculated for each speech sample, by two independent raters. Structural 3D T1 images were segmented and parcellated using FreeSurfer and whole-brain between-sex differences in cortical thickness, cortical volume and surface area, were obtained. Between-group differences in white matter diffusion tensor scalars were examined via Tract-Based Spatial-Statistics and whole-brain tractography and automated tract delineation using Automated Fiber Quantification. Speech rate and noun frequency were significantly lower for men, while verb frequency was significantly higher for women, but no differences were identified for MLU. Regarding cortical measures, males demonstrated increased volume, surface area and cortical thickness in several bilateral regions, while no voxel-wise or tractography-based between-group differences in white matter metrics were observed. Regarding the relationship between sex and speech variables, hierarchical regression analyses showed that the superior/middle frontal cluster in surface area may serve as a significant predictor of speech rate variance, but only in females. We discuss several possible interpretations of how sex-related speech abilities could be represented differently in men and women in gray matter structures within the broad language network.
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Affiliation(s)
- Georgia Angelopoulou
- Neuropsychology and Language Disorders Unit, 1st Department of Neurology, Eginition Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
- Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Erin L. Meier
- Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States
| | - Dimitrios Kasselimis
- Neuropsychology and Language Disorders Unit, 1st Department of Neurology, Eginition Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
- Division of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece
| | - Yue Pan
- Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Dimitrios Tsolakopoulos
- Neuropsychology and Language Disorders Unit, 1st Department of Neurology, Eginition Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - George Velonakis
- 2nd Department of Radiology, General University Hospital “Attikon”, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Efstratios Karavasilis
- 2nd Department of Radiology, General University Hospital “Attikon”, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Nikolaos L. Kelekis
- 2nd Department of Radiology, General University Hospital “Attikon”, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Dionysios Goutsos
- Department of Linguistics, School of Philosophy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Constantin Potagas
- Neuropsychology and Language Disorders Unit, 1st Department of Neurology, Eginition Hospital, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Swathi Kiran
- Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
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Stark BC. A Comparison of Three Discourse Elicitation Methods in Aphasia and Age-Matched Adults: Implications for Language Assessment and Outcome. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2019; 28:1067-1083. [PMID: 31181170 PMCID: PMC9154306 DOI: 10.1044/2019_ajslp-18-0265] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/14/2023]
Abstract
Purpose Discourse analysis is commonly used to assess language ability and to evaluate language change following intervention in aphasia. The purpose of this study was to identify differences in language produced during different discourse tasks in a large aphasia group and an age- and education-matched control group. Method Four structured discourse tasks across 3 discourse types (expositional, narrative, and procedural) were evaluated in a group of adults with aphasia (n = 90) and an age-matched control group (n = 84) drawn from AphasiaBank. CLAN software was used to extract primary linguistic variables (mean length of utterance, propositional density, type-token ratio, words per minute, open-closed class word ratio, noun-verb ratio, and tokens), which served as proxies for various language abilities. Using a series of repeated-measures analyses of covariance, with significantly correlated demographic and descriptive variables as covariates, main effects of discourse type were evaluated. Results Despite an impoverished output from the aphasia group (i.e., the control group produced significantly more overall output), there was a main effect of discourse type on most primary linguistic variables in both groups, suggesting that, in adults with and without language impairments, each discourse type taxed components of the spoken language system to varying extents. Post hoc tests fleshed out these results, demonstrating that, for example, narrative discourse produced speech highest in propositional density. Conclusion Each discourse type taxes the language system in different ways, verifying the importance of using several discourse tasks and selecting the most sensitive discourse tasks when evaluating specific language abilities and outcomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brielle C. Stark
- Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, Program in Neuroscience, Indiana University Bloomington
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Kim H, Kintz S, Zelnosky K, Wright HH. Measuring word retrieval in narrative discourse: core lexicon in aphasia. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE & COMMUNICATION DISORDERS 2019; 54:62-78. [PMID: 30426603 PMCID: PMC6661895 DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12432] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2018] [Revised: 09/17/2018] [Accepted: 09/20/2018] [Indexed: 05/27/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Discourse analysis procedures are time consuming and impractical in a clinical setting. Critical to clinicians are simple and informative discourse measures that require minimal time and labour to complete. Many studies, however, have overlooked difficulties that clinicians face. We recently developed core lexicon lists for nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs for two narrative discourse tasks with healthy control groups. Core lexicon lists consist of important lexical items required to produce coherently meaningful discourse in response to discourse tasks. Measuring core lexicon is useful for quantifying word retrieval impairments at the discourse level in clinical populations. AIMS To apply an age-based core lexicon list for nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs for the wordless picture books Good Dog Carl (1985) and Picnic (1984) and to determine how well the lists measured linguistic impairments in persons with aphasia (PWA). MATERIALS & METHODS Lemma forms were extracted from 470 control participants who were divided into seven age groups. Twenty-five core lexicons were identified for four word classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) among the seven age groups. The nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs for each PWA (N = 11) were then compared with the core lexicon for their respective age group. Per cent agreement was computed by comparing the number of total items within each list to the number of items that PWA produced. A Spearman's correlation coefficient was computed between the WAB-R AQ and the per cent agreement for each word type for PWA. OUTCOMES & RESULTS The percentage of agreement for each word type among the age cohorts ranged between 56% and 96%. Of the four word types, core verbs significantly correlated with the WAB AQs for both discourse tasks. A post-hoc analysis found significant differences between fluent and non-fluent aphasia for core verbs. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS Core lexicon analysis appears to be a practical way to capture impairments in word retrieval at the discourse level. Core verbs may be a better indicator to understand holistic language performances for PWA. Use of the core lexicon checklist can serve as an option to reconcile ecological validity with clinical usability.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hana Kim
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA
| | - Stephen Kintz
- Department of Audiology & Speech Pathology, University of Arkansas—Little Rock, AR, USA
| | - Kristen Zelnosky
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Radford University, Radford, VA, USA
| | - Heather Harris Wright
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA
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Kong APH, Linnik A, Law SP, Shum WWM. Measuring discourse coherence in anomic aphasia using Rhetorical Structure Theory. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2018; 20:406-421. [PMID: 28306394 PMCID: PMC5601010 DOI: 10.1080/17549507.2017.1293158] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/03/2016] [Revised: 12/31/2016] [Accepted: 02/04/2017] [Indexed: 06/06/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The existing body of work regarding discourse coherence in aphasia has provided mixed results, leaving the question of coherence being impaired or intact as a result of brain injury unanswered. In this study, discourse coherence in non-brain-damaged (NBD) speakers and speakers with anomic aphasia was investigated quantitatively and qualitatively. METHOD Fifteen native speakers of Cantonese with anomic aphasia and 15 NBD participants produced 60 language samples. Elicitation tasks included story-telling induced by a picture series and a procedural description. The samples were annotated for discourse structure in the framework of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) in order to analyse a number of structural parameters. After that 20 naïve listeners rated coherence of each sample. RESULT Disordered discourse was rated as significantly less coherent. The NBD group demonstrated a higher production fluency than the participants with aphasia and used a richer set of semantic relations to create discourse, particularly in the description of settings, expression of causality, and extent of elaboration. People with aphasia also tended to omit essential information content. CONCLUSION Reduced essential information content, lower degree of elaboration, and a larger amount of structural disruptions may have contributed to the reduced overall discourse coherence in speakers with anomic aphasia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anthony Pak-Hin Kong
- Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL, USA
| | - Anastasia Linnik
- International Doctorate for Experimental Approaches to Language and Brain (IDEALAB), University of Potsdam, Germany; University of Groningen, Netherlands; Macquarie University, Australia; University of Trento, Italy; University of Newcastle, UK
| | - Sam-Po Law
- Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
| | - Waisa Wai-Man Shum
- Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
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Vandenborre D, Visch-Brink E, van Dun K, Verhoeven J, Mariën P. Oral and written picture description in individuals with aphasia. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE & COMMUNICATION DISORDERS 2018; 53:294-307. [PMID: 29119700 DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12348] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/26/2017] [Revised: 09/14/2017] [Accepted: 09/19/2017] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Aphasia is characterized by difficulties in connected speech/writing. AIMS To explore the differences between the oral and written description of a picture in individuals with chronic aphasia (IWA) and healthy controls. Descriptions were controlled for productivity, efficiency, grammatical organization, substitution behaviour and discourse organization. METHODS & PROCEDURES Fifty IWA and 50 healthy controls matched for age, gender and education provided an oral and written description of a black-and-white situational drawing from the Dutch version of the Comprehensive Aphasia Test. Between- and within-group analyses were carried out and the reliability of the test instrument was assessed. OUTCOMES & RESULTS The language samples of the healthy controls were more elaborate, more efficient, syntactically richer, more coherent, and consisted of fewer spoken and written language errors than the samples of the IWA. Within-group comparisons showed that connected writing is more sensitive than connected speech to capture aphasic symptoms. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS The analysis of both modalities (speech and writing) at the discourse level allows one to assess simultaneously micro- and macro-linguistic skills and their potential interrelations in a given IWA. Connected writing appears to be more sensitive in discriminating IWA from healthy controls than connected speech. This method for analyzing language samples should, however, be used in conjunction with other assessment tools.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dorien Vandenborre
- Clinical and Experimental Neurolinguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
- Thomas More, Antwerp, Belgium
| | - Evy Visch-Brink
- Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
| | - Kim van Dun
- Clinical and Experimental Neurolinguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
| | - Jo Verhoeven
- School of Health Sciences, Division of Language and Communication Science, City University London, London, UK
- CLIPS, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
| | - Peter Mariën
- Clinical and Experimental Neurolinguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
- Department of Neurology and Memory Clinic, ZNA Middelheim Hospital, Antwerp, Belgium
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Hsu CJ, Thompson CK. Manual Versus Automated Narrative Analysis of Agrammatic Production Patterns: The Northwestern Narrative Language Analysis and Computerized Language Analysis. JOURNAL OF SPEECH, LANGUAGE, AND HEARING RESEARCH : JSLHR 2018; 61:373-385. [PMID: 29411008 PMCID: PMC7251335 DOI: 10.1044/2017_jslhr-l-17-0185] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/17/2017] [Accepted: 10/11/2017] [Indexed: 05/03/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE The purpose of this study is to compare the outcomes of the manually coded Northwestern Narrative Language Analysis (NNLA) system, which was developed for characterizing agrammatic production patterns, and the automated Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN) system, which has recently been adopted to analyze speech samples of individuals with aphasia (a) for reliability purposes to ascertain whether they yield similar results and (b) to evaluate CLAN for its ability to automatically identify language variables important for detailing agrammatic production patterns. METHOD The same set of Cinderella narrative samples from 8 participants with a clinical diagnosis of agrammatic aphasia and 10 cognitively healthy control participants were transcribed and coded using NNLA and CLAN. Both coding systems were utilized to quantify and characterize speech production patterns across several microsyntactic levels: utterance, sentence, lexical, morphological, and verb argument structure levels. Agreement between the 2 coding systems was computed for variables coded by both. RESULTS Comparison of the 2 systems revealed high agreement for most, but not all, lexical-level and morphological-level variables. However, NNLA elucidated utterance-level, sentence-level, and verb argument structure-level impairments, important for assessment and treatment of agrammatism, which are not automatically coded by CLAN. CONCLUSIONS CLAN automatically and reliably codes most lexical and morphological variables but does not automatically quantify variables important for detailing production deficits in agrammatic aphasia, although conventions for manually coding some of these variables in Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts are possible. Suggestions for combining automated programs and manual coding to capture these variables or revising CLAN to automate coding of these variables are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chien-Ju Hsu
- Neurolinguistics and Aphasia Research Laboratory, Center for the Neurobiology of Language Recovery, The Roxelyn & Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
| | - Cynthia K. Thompson
- Neurolinguistics and Aphasia Research Laboratory, Center for the Neurobiology of Language Recovery, The Roxelyn & Richard Pepper Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
- Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center, Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL
- The Ken & Ruth Davee Department of Neurology, Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL
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Mueller KD, Koscik RL, Turkstra LS, Riedeman SK, LaRue A, Clark LR, Hermann B, Sager MA, Johnson SC. Connected Language in Late Middle-Aged Adults at Risk for Alzheimer's Disease. J Alzheimers Dis 2018; 54:1539-1550. [PMID: 27636838 DOI: 10.3233/jad-160252] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Connected language is often impaired among people with Alzheimer's disease (AD), yet little is known about when language difficulties first emerge on the path to a clinical diagnosis. The objective of this study was to determine whether individuals with psychometric (preclinical) evidence of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (pMCI) showed deficits in connected language measures. Participants were 39 pMCI and 39 cognitively healthy (CH) adults drawn from the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention, who were matched for age, literacy, and sex. Participants completed a connected language task in which they described the Cookie Theft picture from the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination. Language samples were analyzed across three language domains: content, syntactic complexity, and speech fluency. Paired t-tests were used to compare CH and pMCI groups on all variables, and Cohen's d effect sizes were calculated for each comparison. The CH and pMCI groups differed significantly on measures of content (e.g., CH group produced more semantic units, more unique words and had larger idea density, on average, than the pMCI group). The picture description findings are consistent with previous retrospective studies showing semantic language differences in adults with autopsy-confirmed AD. Given that these comparisons are between cognitively healthy and pMCI individuals (before a clinical MCI diagnosis), these findings may represent subtle language difficulty in spontaneous speech, and may be predictive of larger language changes over time.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kimberly Diggle Mueller
- Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA.,Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Rebecca L Koscik
- Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Lyn S Turkstra
- Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Sarah K Riedeman
- Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Asenath LaRue
- Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Lindsay R Clark
- Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA.,Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Bruce Hermann
- Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA.,Department of Neurology, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Mark A Sager
- Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Sterling C Johnson
- Wisconsin Alzheimer's Institute, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA.,Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center, William S. Middleton Memorial VA Hospital, Madison WI, USA.,Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI, USA
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Efthymiopoulou E, Kasselimis DS, Ghika A, Kyrozis A, Peppas C, Evdokimidis I, Petrides M, Potagas C. The effect of cortical and subcortical lesions on spontaneous expression of memory-encoded and emotionally infused information: Evidence for a role of the ventral stream. Neuropsychologia 2017; 101:115-120. [PMID: 28495600 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.05.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2016] [Revised: 05/03/2017] [Accepted: 05/07/2017] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
The ventral stream of language processing has been implicated in the spontaneous expression of memory-encoded and emotionally infused information. The present study investigated whether left hemispheric lesions in post-stroke right-handed aphasic patients may be selectively associated with specific language functions. Speech rate was assessed with two tasks, one based on autobiographical memory of an emotionally infused event (stroke story narration) and the other based on information that is visually available at the time of speech generation ("cookie theft" picture description). CT and/or MRI scans were obtained for each patient and lesions located in 16 regions of the left hemisphere were identified and coded. The total number of cortical and subcortical areas affected served as a measure of lesion extent. While mean speech rates were similar across conditions, there were different patterns of association between each index and specific lesion sites. Non-parametric quantile regression statistical models constructed to assess dependence of both speech rate indices on each lesion locus indicated that the speech rate in the stroke story had significant inverse associations with total number of lesioned areas, as well as lesions in the inferior frontal gyrus and the external/extreme capsule region. The cookie theft speech rate had significant inverse associations with total number of lesioned areas as well as lesion in the inferior frontal gyrus, but not with the external/extreme capsule region. In sum, integrity of the extreme/external capsule region appears to be important selectively for the Stroke Story task, supporting the hypothesis that the ventral stream plays a central role in spontaneous expression of memory-encoded and emotionally infused information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Efthymia Efthymiopoulou
- 1st Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Dimitrios S Kasselimis
- 1st Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece.
| | - Apostolia Ghika
- 1st Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Andreas Kyrozis
- 1st Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Christos Peppas
- Department of Radiology, Therapeutic Center of Athens ''Lefkos Stavros'', Athens, Greece
| | - Ioannis Evdokimidis
- 1st Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
| | - Michael Petrides
- Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
| | - Constantin Potagas
- 1st Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
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Abstract
Semantic memory is relatively stable across the lifespan (Rönnlund, Nyberg, & Bäckman, 2005; Spaniol, Madden, & Voss, 2006); however, most research has been conducted at the single concept level. Few researchers have examined how semantic knowledge is used in discourse. The purpose of the study, then, was to determine the proportion of semantic knowledge and category domains used in discourse produced by younger and older participants. Cognitively healthy, younger (n=30, 20-39) and older (n=30; 60-89) participants told stories that were transcribed and coded for 10 domains of semantic knowledge and also living and nonliving things. Results indicated group differences for the proportion of semantic knowledge type, sound, and for the category type, living things. These findings extend previous research on semantic features into the realm of discourse and indicate the importance of studying semantic features and categories within discourse.
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Kavé G, Goral M. Do age-related word retrieval difficulties appear (or disappear) in connected speech? AGING NEUROPSYCHOLOGY AND COGNITION 2016; 24:508-527. [PMID: 27583986 DOI: 10.1080/13825585.2016.1226249] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
Abstract
We conducted a comprehensive literature review of studies of word retrieval in connected speech in healthy aging and reviewed relevant aphasia research that could shed light on the aging literature. Four main hypotheses guided the review: (1) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to reduced output in connected speech. (2) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to a more limited lexical variety in connected speech. (3) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to an increase in word substitution errors and in pronoun use as well as to greater dysfluency and hesitation in connected speech. (4) Retrieval difficulties on tests of single-word production would be associated with measures of word retrieval in connected speech. Studies on aging did not confirm these four hypotheses, unlike studies on aphasia that generally did. The review suggests that future research should investigate how context facilitates word production in old age.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gitit Kavé
- a Department of Education and Psychology , The Open University , Ra'anana , Israel
| | - Mira Goral
- b Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences , Lehman College , CUNY, Bronx , NY , USA
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Capilouto GJ, Wright HH, Maddy KM. Microlinguistic processes that contribute to the ability to relay main events: influence of age. AGING NEUROPSYCHOLOGY AND COGNITION 2015; 23:445-63. [PMID: 26653413 DOI: 10.1080/13825585.2015.1118006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
The purpose of the current study was to determine the microlinguistic processes that contribute to picture description in healthy adults across the life span. Two-hundred forty healthy adults were separated into three groups, young (n = 80; 20-39), middle (n = 80; 40-69), and older (n = 80; 70-89). Participants provided language samples in response to two single and two sequential pictures analyzed for total number of words, informativeness, lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and main events. The older group produced a significantly lower proportion of main events for the single and sequential pictures compared to the other groups. Group differences on the microlinguistic measures varied depending on the measure and the stimulus type. Further, regardless of task, total number of words significantly related to main event production for the young and middle aged groups, but not the older group. Results of the current study extend previous findings by researchers who have investigated discourse production in cognitively healthy, older adults. Using a multi-level approach, we found that linguistic processes across different levels interact; however, the relationship is age-dependent. By including a middle-aged group we identify the potential course of documented change and our results indicate that the changes in language processes with age may not be linear.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gilson J Capilouto
- a Department of Rehabilitation Sciences , University of Kentucky , Lexington , KY 40536-0200 , USA
| | - Heather Harris Wright
- b College of Allied Health Sciences, 3206 F Allied Health Sciences, MS 668 , East Carolina University , Greenville , NC 27834 , USA
| | - Katherine McComas Maddy
- a Department of Rehabilitation Sciences , University of Kentucky , Lexington , KY 40536-0200 , USA
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Dalton SG, Richardson JD. Core-Lexicon and Main-Concept Production During Picture-Sequence Description in Adults Without Brain Damage and Adults With Aphasia. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY 2015; 24:S923-S938. [PMID: 26140462 DOI: 10.1044/2015_ajslp-14-0161] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/16/2014] [Accepted: 05/18/2015] [Indexed: 06/04/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE We sought to identify the core lexicon of a picture-description task using transcripts from the AphasiaBank database and to determine differences in core-lexicon usage between control speakers and persons with aphasia (PWAs). We also investigated the relationship between core lexicon and an established discourse measure, main-concept analysis. METHOD A core lexicon was developed by identifying lemmas produced by 92 control speakers. Transcripts were scored-165 control transcripts and 238 PWA transcripts-using the core lexicon and a recently developed main-concept list. Median tests examined differences between controls, PWAs, and aphasia subtypes. Spearman's correlations assessed the relationship between core-lexicon and main-concept performance. RESULTS A 24-item core lexicon was identified. Significant differences were found between control speakers and PWAs, and between aphasia subtypes, for core-lexicon and main-concept scores. Core-lexicon and main-concept performance was significantly and positively correlated for all groups. CONCLUSIONS We report the development of a core lexicon, differences in core-lexicon usage between speakers, and the relationship between core-lexicon and main-concept scores. Research is needed to determine the clinical utility and psychometric properties of these discourse measures and their potential contribution to multilevel discourse analysis of functional communication.
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Wright HH, Capilouto GJ, Koutsoftas A. Evaluating measures of global coherence ability in stories in adults. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE & COMMUNICATION DISORDERS 2013; 48:249-56. [PMID: 23650882 PMCID: PMC3799984 DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12000] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/24/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Discourse coherence is a reflection of the listener's ability to interpret the overall meaning conveyed by the speaker. Measuring global coherence (maintenance of thematic unity of the discourse) is useful for quantifying communication impairments at the discourse level in clinical populations and for measuring response to discourse-level treatments. AIMS The aim was to determine feasibility of a four-point global coherence scale developed by the authors. Specifically, they were (1) to estimate measurement reliability of the four-point global coherence scale; and (2) to estimate construct validity for the four-point global coherence scale. METHOD & PROCEDURES Fifty cognitively healthy adults aged between 28 and 58 years participated in the study. Participants viewed and then told the stories depicted in two wordless picture books. Participants' stories were orthographically transcribed and segmented into communication units (C-unit). Raters scored each participant's story for global coherence using two global coherence scales (four- and five-point scales). Each C-unit received an individual score, then the mean global coherence score was computed, resulting in two mean global coherence scores for each coherence scale, one for each story, for all participants. OUTCOMES & RESULTS Results indicated high reliability estimates for the scale. In addition, construct validity, specifically face validity and convergent validity, was effectively estimated for using the four-point scale as a measure of maintenance of global coherence in stories told by cognitively healthy adults. Lastly, it was found that the wordless picture books elicited stories that are comparable and can be reliably interchanged as different forms to evaluate maintenance of global coherence. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS The assumptions that the measure is feasible were achieved and face and convergent validity were adequately estimated. Future investigations should consider estimating predictive validity, concurrent validity and discriminant validity of the measure.
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Affiliation(s)
- Heather Harris Wright
- Communication Sciences & Disorders, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC 27834, USA.
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Wright HH, Capilouto GJ. Considering a multi-level approach to understanding maintenance of global coherence in adults with aphasia. APHASIOLOGY 2012; 26:656-672. [PMID: 22962509 PMCID: PMC3432974 DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2012.676855] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/20/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Discourse is a naturally occurring, dynamic form of communication. Coherence is one aspect of discourse and is a reflection of the listener's ability to interpret the overall meaning conveyed by the speaker. Adults with aphasia may present with impaired maintenance of global coherence, which, in turn, may contribute to their difficulties in overall communicative competence. AIMS: The aim of the study was to determine if microlinguistic processes contribute to maintenance of global coherence in adults with and without aphasia. METHOD AND PROCEDURES: Participants included 15 adults with aphasia (PWA) and 15 healthy controls (HC). Study participants told stories conveyed in wordless picture books. The discourse samples were transcribed and then analyzed for percent of information units produced, lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and maintenance of global coherence. OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: Several linear regression models were carried out to investigate the relationship among the microlinguistic and macrolinguistic measures. For the control group, percent of information units conveyed was a significant predictor of maintenance of global coherence for stories told. For the aphasia group, percent of information units conveyed and lexical diversity were significant predictors of maintenance of global coherence for stories told. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicated that microlinguistic processes contribute to the maintenance of global coherence in stories told by adults with aphasia. These findings have important clinical implications for using a multi-level discourse model for analyzing discourse ability in adults with aphasia and measuring individual response to treatment.
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Macwhinney B, Fromm D, Forbes M, Holland A. AphasiaBank: Methods for Studying Discourse. APHASIOLOGY 2011; 25:1286-1307. [PMID: 22923879 PMCID: PMC3424615 DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2011.589893] [Citation(s) in RCA: 150] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/19/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND: AphasiaBank is a computerized database of interviews between persons with aphasia (PWAs) and clinicians. By February 2011, the database had grown to include 145 PWAs and 126 controls from 12 sites across the United States. The data and related analysis programs are available free over the web. AIMS: The overall goal of AphasiaBank is the construction of a system for accumulating and sharing data on language usage by PWAs. To achieve this goal, we have developed a standard elicitation protocol and systematic automatic and manual methods for transcription, coding, and analysis. METHODS #ENTITYSTARTX00026; PROCEDURES: We present sample analyses of transcripts from the retelling of the Cinderella story. These analyses illustrate the application of our methods for the study of phonological, lexical, semantic, morphological, syntactic, temporal, prosodic, gestural, and discourse features. MAIN CONTRIBUTION: AphasiaBank will allow researchers access to a large, shared database that can facilitate hypothesis testing and increase methodological replicability, precision, and transparency. CONCLUSIONS: AphasiaBank will provide researchers with an important new tool in the study of aphasia.
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Fergadiotis G, Wright HH. Lexical diversity for adults with and without aphasia across discourse elicitation tasks. APHASIOLOGY 2011; 25:1414-1430. [PMID: 23125474 PMCID: PMC3486429 DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2011.603898] [Citation(s) in RCA: 59] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/14/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Differences in lexical diversity (LD) across different discourse elicitation tasks have been found in neurologically intact adults (NIA) (Fergadiotis, Wright, & Capilouto, 2010) but have not been investigated systematically in people with aphasia (PWA). Measuring lexical diversity in PWA may serve as a useful clinical tool for evaluating the impact of word retrieval difficulties at the discourse level. AIMS: The study aims were (a) to explore the differences between the oral language samples of PWA and NIA in terms of LD as measured by dedicated computer software (voc-D), (b) to determine whether PWA are sensitive to discourse elicitation task in terms of LD, and (c) to identify whether differences between PWA and NIA vary in magnitude as a function of discourse task. METHOD #ENTITYSTARTX00026; PROCEDURES: Oral language samples from 25 PWA and 27 NIA were analysed. Participants completed three commonly used discourse elicitation tasks (single pictures, sequential pictures, story telling) and voc-D was used to obtain estimates of their LD. OUTCOMES #ENTITYSTARTX00026; RESULTS: A mixed 2 × 3 ANOVA revealed a significant group task interaction that was followed by an investigation of simple main effects and tetrad×comparisons. Different patterns of LD were uncovered for each group. For the NIA group results were consistent with previous findings in the literature according to which LD varies as a function of elicitation technique. However, for PWA sequential pictures and story telling elicited comparable estimates of LD. CONCLUSIONS: Results indicated that LD is one of the microlinguistic indices that are influenced by elicitation task and the presence of aphasia. These findings have important implications for modelling lexical diversity and selecting and interpreting results from different discourse elicitation tasks.
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