The cerebral localization of multiple languages is a topic of active research. This study presents a method for assessing whether partial overlap of active voxels reflects differential language localization, or simply the variability known to occur with multiple runs of the same task in fMRI studies. Two groups of bilingual subjects (early and later learners of L2) performed word fluency and sentence generation tasks in both languages. The degree of separation for regions of activation did not exceed that associated with run-to-run variability for either task or either group. Early bilinguals, however, showed greater total numbers of active voxels than Late bilinguals for both tasks. This effect occurred despite a lack of a behavioral performance differences by the two groups.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with agrammatism show selective deficits in functional categories. The Tree Pruning Hypothesis (TPH; Friedmann & Grodzinsky, 1997) suggests that this results from inability to project certain nodes in the syntactic tree. On this account, higher nodes in the tree are more vulnerable than lower ones. Other theories, however, suggest that functional category impairments can be explained in the context of a morphological deficit (e.g., Arabatzi & Edwards, 2002; Penke, 2003; Thompson, Fix, Gitelman, 2002). AIMS: This study examined production of complementizers, tense, and agreement morphology in four English-speaking agrammatic participants to test the hierarchical nature of functional category deficits. The consistency of verb inflection errors was also tested under conditions examining a minimal set versus a full array of English inflected forms. MATERIALS #ENTITYSTARTX00026; PROCEDURES: In experiment 1, participants were asked to produce sentences by using a complementizer (i.e. whether, that, and if), a tense (-ed) or agreement marker (-s), in structured sentence elicitation tasks. In experiment 2, the participants' production of both finite and nonfinite verb inflection forms was examined. OUTCOME #ENTITYSTARTX00026; RESULTS: All participants produced complex sentences successfully using a complementizer, indicating intact projection to the Complementizer Phrase (CP). As for tense and agreement (structures within the Inflection Phrase (IP)), the agrammatic speakers were impaired in both categories and they showed higher scores in nonfinite vs. finite verb conditions. Further, their errors were dominated by substitutions, rather than omissions, with various non-target morphemes. CONCLUSIONS: Our agrammatic participants' deficits are morphological, rather than syntactic. The participants were able to project to the upper most structure, CP. They showed the ability to project verb inflection and to implement inflectional rules in their grammar. However, instantiation of grammatical markers sometimes failed to operate, resulting in incorrect inflectional forms. These findings suggest that within the domain of functional categories, IP- and CP-level deficits may result from disruption of differing underlying mechanisms and, therefore, they may require separate treatment strategies.

Patient-centered care is extending the sphere of health care beyond the patient, focusing attention upon the family caregiver(s). In this context, patient–family relationships are at the center of consistent, well-developed interprofessional interventions that encompass caregiver education, training, and wellness. Cohort models of intervention include groups of patients who start and stop a program or intervention simultaneously. One such cohort-based service delivery model is an intensive comprehensive aphasia program (ICAP), which provides an ideal context in which to address holistic care for the person with aphasia and his or her family caregivers. The interprofessional family caregiver intervention program of the ICAP at the University of Montana is twofold: (1) speech–language pathologists and graduate student clinicians in speech–language pathology provide family caregiver education and resources, communication training, and psychosocial support and (2) a licensed professional counselor and counselor-in-training provide group counseling for family caregivers focusing on personal wellness, caregiving strategies, emotional health, and adaptation to significant life changes. The fusion of equitable interprofessional collaboration, along with the cohort model of the ICAP, allows for acquisition of knowledge, communication strategies, and coping skills along with the development of close, meaningful relationships with other caregivers and persons with aphasia.

Individuals with agrammatic Broca's aphasia show deficits in production of functional morphemes like complementizers (e.g., that and if) and tense and agreement markers (e.g., -ed and -s), with complementizers often being more impaired than verbal morphology. However, there has been comparatively little work examining patients' ability to comprehend or judge the grammaticality of these morphemes. This paper investigates comprehension of complementizers and verb inflections in two timed grammaticality-judgment experiments. In Experiment 1, participants with agrammatic Broca's aphasia and grammatical-morphology production deficits (n=10) and unimpaired controls (n=10) heard complement clause sentences, subject relative clause sentences, and conjoined sentences. In Experiment 2, the same participants heard sentences with finite auxiliaries, sentences with finite main verbs, and sentences with uninflected verbs. Results showed above-chance accuracy in aphasic participants' judgments for complementizer sentences in Experiment 1, but chance performance for verb inflections in Experiment 2. This pattern held regardless of whether the verb inflections were affixes or free-standing auxiliaries. Implications of these results for theories of agrammatic morphological impairments, including feature underspecification accounts (Wenzlaff & Clahsen, 2004; Burchert, Swoboda-Moll & DeBleser, 2005a) and hierarchical structure-based accounts (Friedmann & Grodzinsky, 1997; Izvorski & Ullman, 1999), are discussed.