Two cases of surface dyslexia are described. In this disorder, irregular words such as broad or steak are less likely to be read aloud correctly than regularly-spelled words like breed or steam; and when irregular words are misread the incorrect response is often a regularisation (reading broad as “brode” and steak as “steek, for example). When reading comprehension was tested, homophones were often confused with each other: for example, soar was understood as an instrument for cutting, and route was understood as being part of a tree. Spelling was also impaired, with the majority of spelling errors being phonologically correct: for example, “search” was spelled surch. “Orthographic” errors in reading aloud (omitting, altering, adding or transposing letters) were also noted. These errors were not due to defects at elementary levels of visual processing. One of our cases was a developmental dyslexic, and the other was an acquired dyslexic. The close similarity of their reading and spelling performance supports the view that surface dyslexia can cccur both as a developmental and as an acquired dyslexia. A theoretical interpretation of surface dyslexia within the framework of the logogen model (including a grapheme-phoneme correspondence system for reading non-words) was offered: defects within the input logogen system, and in communication from that system to semantics, were postulated as responsible for most of the symptoms of surface dyslexia.

Background and Purpose-Health-related quality of life (HRQL) is a key outcome in stroke clinical trials. Stroke-specific HRQL scales (eg, SS-QOL, SIS) have generally been developed with samples of stroke survivors that exclude people with aphasia. We adapted the SS-QOL for use with people with aphasia to produce the Stroke and Aphasia Quality of Life Scale (SAQOL). We report results from the psychometric evaluation of the initial 53-item SAQOL and the item-reduced SAQOL-39. Methods-We studied 95 people with long-term aphasia to evaluate the acceptability, reliability, and validity of the SAQOL and SAQOL-39 using standard psychometric methods. Results-A total of 83 of 95 (87%) were able to complete the SAQOL by self-report; their results are reported here. Results supported the reliability and validity of the overall score on the 53-item SAQOL, but there was little support for hypothesized subdomains. Using factor analysis, we derived a shorter version (SAQOL-39) that identified 4 subdomains (physical, psychosocial, communication, and energy

Background: In recent years, quality of life measures have been used increasingly to evaluate the

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This is the unspecified version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Keywords: health-related quality of life; aphasia; proxy ratings; stroke outcome. Permanent 2 AbstractBackground: Health-related quality of life (HRQL) measures are increasingly used to help us understand

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Assessing health related quality of life (HRQOL) in people with communication disabilities is a challenge in health related research. Materials used to assess HRQOL are often linguistically complex and their mode of administration usually does not facilitate people with communication disabilities to give their experiences. We are currently running a medium scale study (80 participants) which aims to explore the HRQOL of people with long-term aphasia and to assess the psychometric properties and the acceptability of the Stroke Specific Quality of Life Scale (SS-QOL) ) as a single measure for the assessment of HRQOL in this population. Here the initial stages of modifying the SS-QOL for use with people with aphasia will be presented. We will concentrate on the process of making the scale communicatively accessible to people with aphasia and increasing its content validity with this population group. IntroductionIn recent years there has been a trend towards incorporating HRQOL measures in patient outcome research. The purpose of this is to better understand the impact of disease on the patient's life as a whole (Patrick and Erickson 1993), to evaluate the efficacy of different therapeutic interventions and service provisions (de Haan et al. 1993); and to incorporate the patient's perspective in clinical decision making (Wenger et al. 1984, Mayou andBryant 1993).In the field of stroke, however, assessing HRQOL is a challenge as some people after stroke suffer from speech and language and/or cognitive difficulties. They have difficulty completing self-report assessments and questionnaires. As a result, although there is a considerable amount of research investigating emotional outcomes and HRQOL in stroke survivors we still have limited information for the vulnerable group of people with aphasia. Sometimes they are excluded from the studies (e.g. Duncan et al. 1997, Jonkman et al. 1998, Clarke et al. 1999. In the studies that do include people with aphasia (e.g. Foster and Young 1996, King 1996, Bethoux et al. 1999, Lofgren et al. 1999 often the validity of the assessments is doubtful. People with aphasia would have had difficulty understanding some of the items of the questionnaires used and expressing their responses. They would require at least some modification of the testing materials and special skills on behalf of the interviewer in order to give their experience of stroke.To overcome some of these difficulties we are developing an interview-administered version of the Stroke Specific Quality of Life Scale (SS-QOL) for people with mild to moderate receptive aphasia. We chose the SS-QOL for the following reasons. First, it is a patient derived measure: to establish domain and item content validity the developers held focused interviews with stroke survivors to identify the domains most affected by their stroke . Second, it is designed specifically for use in clinical trials: this makes it a relatively easy and quick to administer measure.Developing an aphasia-adapted version of the SS-QOL is a long process, w...