Clinical pragmatics

Perkins, Michael

doi:10.1075/hop.15.cli1

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 119 publications

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“…However, both qualitative and (albeit exploratory) quantitative analysis on the Interview items showed that (i) grammatical impairment was just one of the many facets of the deficits in discourse production shown by patients with PD, and indeed these patients did not show impairment in the Token Test and (ii) there was no evidence of phonological paraphasia. This might be indicative of discourse-pragmatic problems that are not “secondary,” i.e., caused by difficulties in structural aspects of language or by sensorimotor deficits (as reported, for instance in aphasia; see Perkins, 2003), but rather “genuine,” albeit possibly co-existent with difficulties in other language domains.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Pragmatic Language Disorder in Parkinson’s Disease and the Potential Effect of Cognitive Reserve

et al. 2019

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It is known that patients with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) may show deficits in several areas of cognition, including speech and language abilities. One domain of particular interest is pragmatics, which refers to the capacity of using language in context for a successful communication. Several studies showed that some specific aspects of pragmatics – both in production and in comprehension – might be impaired in patients with PD. However, a clear picture of pragmatic abilities in PD is still missing, as most of the existing studies focused on specific aspects of the pragmatic competence rather than on sketching a complete pragmatic profile. Moreover, little is known on the potential role of protective factors in compensating the decline of communicative skills as the disease progresses. The present study has two aims: (1) to provide a complete picture of pragmatic abilities in patients with PD, by using a comprehensive battery (Assessment of Pragmatic Abilities and Cognitive Substrates, APACS) and by investigating the relationship with other aspects of cognitive functioning (e.g., working memory and Theory of Mind) and (2) to investigate whether Cognitive Reserve, i.e., the resilience to cognitive impairment provided by life experiences and activities, may compensate for the progressive pragmatic deficits in PD. We found that patients with PD, compared to healthy matched controls, had worse performance in discourse production and in the description of scenes, and that these impairments were tightly correlated with the severity of motor impairment, suggesting reduced intentionality of engaging in a communicative exchange. Patients with PD showed also an impairment in comprehending texts and humor, suggesting a problem in inferring from stories, which was related to general cognitive impairment. Notably, we did not find any significant difference between patients and controls in figurative language comprehension, a domain that is commonly impaired in other neurodegenerative diseases. This might be indicative of a specific profile of pragmatic impairment in patients with PD, worth of further investigation. Finally, Cognitive Reserve measures showed a high degree of association with pragmatic comprehension abilities, suggesting that the modification of life-styles could be a good candidate for compensating the possible problems in understanding the pragmatic aspects of language experienced by patients with PD.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Pragmatic Language Disorder in Parkinson’s Disease and the Potential Effect of Cognitive Reserve

et al. 2019

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“…Developmentally, these abilities are shown in children's progressing ability to use relevant language according to different situations and understand what the other person really intends in different kinds of communication situations. Because these abilities have a multifactorial base, the social-pragmatic development is vulnerable to dysfunctions related to many areas of development, as mentioned previously (Cummings, 2009;Perkins, 2007Perkins, , 2011.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…This can be interpreted as indicating that, with age, children become more capable of directing their attention towards relevant information in utterance interpretation . Development of social-pragmatic abilities is accompanied by development of various cognitive and language abilities (see Perkins, 2007Perkins, , 2011. With increasing age children are more capable of managing inferential chains of different complexities (Bosco et al, 2013;Bosco & Gabbatore, 2017a, 2017bHarris & Pexman, 2003), express complex issues explicitly (Mäkinen, Loukusa, Nieminen, Leinonen, & Kunnari, 2014) and reason about beliefs (Heiphetz et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Angeleri & Airenti, 2014;Bosco & Gabbatore, 2017;Loukusa, Leinonen, & Ryder, 2007), which has led to the possibility to develop new research-based methods for assessing the development of such capabilities in typically developing (TD) children. The adopted approach, involving a close integration of social and pragmatic comprehension skills in structured assessment, is based on previous studies that suggest a strong relationship between ToM and communicative abilities (Lohmann, Tomasello, & Meyer, 2005;Miller, 2006;Nelson, 2005; see also Hyter, 2017;Perkins, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Understanding Contextual and Social Meaning in Typically Developing Finnish-Speaking Four- To Eight-Year-Old Children

Loukusa

Mäkinen

Gabbatore

et al. 2017

Psychology of Language and Communication

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This study examined the development of social-pragmatic comprehension in 170 Finnish four-to eight-year-old children. The children were asked to respond to socially and contextually demanding questions targeting their social-pragmatic language processing, and to explain their correct answers in order to elicit their awareness of how they had derived the answers from the context. The results showed that the number of correct answers increased especially between the ages of four and seven years. We found that questions demanding contextual processing without mind-reading were the easiest to understand, followed by questions demanding processing of feelings of others and false beliefs. The questions demanding understanding of relevant language use and processing of contextual factors including mental states and intentions were the most challenging for the children. Between four and five years of age there was a remarkable developmental phase in children's ability to give proper explanations.

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Clinical pragmatics

Cited by 2 publications

References 119 publications

Pragmatic Language Disorder in Parkinson’s Disease and the Potential Effect of Cognitive Reserve

Pragmatic Language Disorder in Parkinson’s Disease and the Potential Effect of Cognitive Reserve

Understanding Contextual and Social Meaning in Typically Developing Finnish-Speaking Four- To Eight-Year-Old Children

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