Naming and verbal learning in adults with Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment and in healthy aging, with low educational levels

Abstract

Language assessment seems to be an effective tool to differentiate healthy and cognitively impaired aging groups. This article discusses the impact of educational level on a naming task, on a verbal learning with semantic cues task and on the MMSE in healthy aging adults at three educational levels (very low, low and high) as well as comparing two clinical groups of very low (0-3 years) and low education (4-7 years) patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) with healthy controls. The participants comprised 101 healthy controls, 17 patients with MCI and 19 with AD. Comparisons between the healthy groups showed an education effect on the MMSE, but not on naming and verbal learning. However, the clinical groups were differentiated in both the naming and verbal learning assessment. The results support the assumption that the verbal learning with semantic cues task is a valid tool to diagnose MCI and AD patients, with no influence from education.

A Longitudinal Normative Dataset and Protocol for Speech and Language Biomarker Research

“…It has also been shown that highly educated individuals produce higher type token ratios (Hübner et al, 2018) and larger number of unique words in tasks like verbal fluency (Kawano, Umegaki, Suzuki, Yamamoto, Mogi, & Iguchi, 2010), so it is important to control for factors such as socioeconomic status in any SLB data analysis. Some epidemiological studies have reported faster cognitive decline in more educated people (Teri, McCurry, Edland, Kukull, & Larson, 1995;Scarmeas, Albert, Manly, & Stern, 2006), whereas other studies report slower decline in individuals with Alzheimer's disease who have attained more education (Fritsch, McClendon, Smyth, & Ogrocki, 2002).…”

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