Gesture Recognition in Patients with Aphasia

Abstract

This study focuses on the controversial issue of the integrity of gestural communication abilities in subjects with aphasia. To define the ability of subjects to interpret symbolic gestures, an Amer-Ind Recognition Test (ART) was developed which required no verbal response from the examiner or the subject. The relationships between impairment of Amer-Ind signal recognition and (a) severity of aphasia, (b) listening and talking abilities and (c) the type of response picture used were investigated. Whether subjects more often chose related foils than unrelated foils in a forced-choice format was also examined. Two training tests and the ART are described. Results from administration to 15 aphasic subjects indicated that: (a) all subjects performed equally well, regardless of their aphasia severity classification; (b) action picture recognition was related to listening ability; (c) action pictures were easier to identify than object pictures; and (d) on error responses, subjects overwhelmingly chose related over unrelated foils. The possibility that gestural abilities were relatively well preserved among the subjects tested, in the presence of a wide range of listening and talking deficits, is also discussed.

Broca's Area in Language, Action, and Music

“…Neuropsychological studies on patients with frontal aphasia patients have shown deficits in several aspects of the motor domain, in line with the role that Broca's area plays in such mechanisms. Supralinguistic impairments were described that affected such nonverbal abilities as recognizing signs, gestures, and pantomimes 43,44 . Tranel and colleagues demonstrated that left frontal brain‐damaged patients have difficulties in understanding details of action when presented with cards depicting various actions 45 .…”

“…Supralinguistic impairments were described that affected such nonverbal abilities as recognizing signs, gestures, and pantomimes. 43,44 Tranel and colleagues demonstrated that left frontal brain-damaged patients have difficulties in understanding details of action when presented with cards depicting various actions. 45 Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that patients with aphasia show a correlation be-tween action comprehension (through pantomime interpretation) and reading comprehension deficits.…”

Gesture and speech integration: an exploratory study of a man with aphasia

“…Tasks usually involve the standard usage of an object being gestured and an individual indicates the object that the gesture refers to (Duffy and Duffy 1981, Daniloff et al 1982, 1986, Varney 1982, Lambier and Bradley 1991, Thorburn et al 1995). The findings of these studies have indicated that impaired comprehension of pantomime is unrelated to severity of aphasia (Daniloff et al 1982). It has, however, been found to be more frequent in participants with posterior lesions than participants with anterior lesions (Varney 1982, Daniloff et al 1986, Lambier and Bradley 1991).…”

Coverbal behavior of aphasic and right hemisphere damaged subjects in conversation

“…These nonverbal skills may not require verbal mediation. Daniloff et al (1982) found that aphasic patients were able to recognize iconic gestural systems (Amerind) leading to the authors to conclude that the aphasia exhibited in their subjects was a disorder specific to the linguistic system rather than a general representational disorder. study, subjects were asked to comment on twenty topics while they were videotaped.…”

“…Several researchers have examined the gestural abilities of aphasic patients (Cicone, Wapner, Foldi, Zurif & Gardner, 19797 Duffy & Duffy, 19817 Peterson & Kirshner, 1981;Feyereisen & Seron, 1982;Daniloff, Noll, Fristoe & Lloyd, 1982;and Behrmann & Penn, 1985). The focus of this work has been a determination of whether or not patients with aphasia, a language disorder, suffer from a corresponding disorder of their gestural abilities.…”