A neuropsychological approach to the study of gesture and pantomime in aphasa

Abstract

The impairment of gesture and pantomime in aphasia was examined from a neuropsychological perspective. The Boston Diagnostic Test of Aphasia, Luria's Neuro-psychological Investigation, Pickett's Tests for gesture and pantomime and the Performance Scale of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale were administered to six aphasic subjects with varying etiology and severity. Results indicated that severity of aphasia was positively related to severity of gestural disturbance; gestural ability was associated with verbal and non-linguistic aspects of ability, within receptive and expressive levels respectively; performance on gestural tasks was superior to that on verbal tasks irrespective of severity of aphasia; damage to Luria's second and third functional brain units were positively related to deficits in receptive and expressive gesture respectively; no relationship was found between seventy of general intellectual impairment and gestural deficit. It was concluded that the gestural impairment may best be understood as a breakdown in complex sequential manual motor activity. Theoretical and therapeutic implications were discussed.

The Relationship of Aphasia Type and Gesture Production in People With Aphasia

“…Contrary to older reports in the literature that PWA have concomitant gesture production impairments (when measured on limb apraxia tests; see, e.g., Duffy & Duffy, 1981;Kadish, 1978;Pickett, 1974), this study showed that consistent with the first hypothesis, as a group, more PWA gestured as compared to typical controls, and that for many PWA, the gestures produced were iconic. In contrast to PWA, the controls did not use any concrete deictic, pointing-to-self, letter, or pantomime gestures, and significantly fewer used number gestures.…”

Testing causal theories of pantomimic deficits in aphasia using path analysis

“…They presented convincing evidence of impairments of pantomime expression in their group of 20 aphasic subjects. Their findings have been confirmed by subsequent studies , Kadish 1978, Netsu and Marquardt 1984, Pickett 1972, 1974, Wang 1990). In addition t o pantomime expression, studies also have demonstrated deficits in pantomime recognition (Daniloff et a/.…”

“…1981, Gainotti and Lemmo 1976, Hielman eta/. 1982, Kadish 1978, Lambier and Bradley 1991, Netsu and Marquardt 1984, Pickett 1972,1974, Seron eta/. 1979, Varney 1978 R. J.…”