Sentence processing therapy: Working at the level of the event

Abstract

This paper describes the assessment and treatment of a dysphasic subject with severe impairments in sentence production. Investigations revealed poor verb production and reduced access to the verb argument information. Further investigations suggested addtional problems at the level of event processing. Errors were elicited on a verb/picture matching task and on a video assessment which required the identification of participant roles from interactive events. Therapy aimed to improve event processing. The subject was asked to identifj. the agent and theme in video events by selecting relevant photographs. Photo selection was also used to focus on the nature of the verb. Evaluation showed that therapy improved the subject's ability to produce two argument descriptions of action pictures. The structural skills generalized to representations of events which had not been targeted in therapy. The gains in speech production were reflected in a second evaluation procedure in which nalve and familiar (observers were asked to judge the content of the subject's output. The subject's time post-illness and lack of change on a picture-naming control suggest that gains were specific to the content of therapy.

Event processing through naming: Investigating event focus in two people with aphasia

“…This might help them to maintain a useful focus over events, for instance by 'anchoring' their attention while the object of focus is fitted to available language (see Marshall et al, 1993;Marshall, 1994Marshall, , 1999 for similar ideas). Alternatively, therapy may serve to bring covert knowledge of thematic role structure, like that hinted at by Ron's focus on agents, to a conscious level.…”

“…The Role Video (Marshall et al, 1993) presents 32 filmed events followed by photographs of possible outcomes. The correct outcome picture must be selected from distractors.…”

“…MM (Marshall, Pring and Chiat, 1993;Marshall 1994) had non-fluent output with very limited access to verbs or sentences. She fared better with nouns, and indeed when trying to describe events tended instead to produce names of peripheral objects.…”

“Do you havemowing the lawn?” – improvements in word retrieval and grammar following constraint-induced language therapy in primary progressive aphasia

“…It is possible that RBI's main difficulties in the recount task were in selecting and organising relevant information and the conceptualisation of a coherent narrative (e.g., Cairns, 2006). Further examination of his "thinking for speaking" abilities would be necessary to test our hypothesis (c.f., Marshall, Pring, & Chiat, 1993).…”

Evaluating Treatment and Generalization Patterns of Two Theoretically Motivated Sentence Comprehension Therapies

“…First, a number of therapies have been developed that are based on principles of syntax. Mapping therapy, for example, is designed to repair impaired mapping between sentence constituents and thematic roles (Byng, 1988;Byng, Nickels, & Black, 1994;Haendiges, Berndt, & Mitchum, 1996;Jones, 1986;Le Dorze, Jacob, & Coderre, 1991;Marshall, Pring, & Chiat, 1993;Mitchum, Haendiges, & Berndt, 1995;Nickels, Byng, & Black, 1991;Rochon, Laird, Bose, & Scofield, 2005;Schwartz, Saffran, Fink, Myers, & Martin, 1994; for a review, see Fink, 2001). Likewise, the treatment of underlying forms (TUF; Thompson & Shapiro, 2005) guides PWA through the processes of relearning specific syntactic operations such as reordering constituents of sentences that involve noun phrase (NP) movement or wh-movement.…”