Sentence Production in a Discourse Context in Latent Aphasia: A Real-Time Study

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to improve our understanding as to which factors determine online, spoken sentence production abilities of adults with latent aphasia in a discourse context. Method: Discourse samples of the story of Cinderella elicited from AphasiaBank were analyzed with speech analysis software. Participants comprised people with latent and anomic aphasia as well as neurotypical controls (10 per group). Durations of pauses (silent and filled) were analyzed according to (a) the location they occurred (between or within sentences), (b) the syntactic complexity of sentences (simple, complex), and (c) sentence length (number of words). Statistical comparisons were conducted using mixed-effect models. Results: The two clinical groups (latent and anomic) differed from controls in the duration of pauses, both between and within sentences. Syntactic complexity did not exert an effect on either of the two clinical groups as compared with controls. As compared with controls, both clinical groups paused more before long in comparison with short sentences. Conclusion: Reduction in processing speed, which affects the ability to simultaneously maintain multiple linguistic and other cognitive demands associated with planning and monitoring of utterances, is a major factor that compromises sentence production in spoken discourse in latent aphasia. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.19448726

A reconceptualization of sentence production in post-stroke agrammatic aphasia: the synergistic processing bottleneck model

“…Thus syntactic planning has a time cost and individuals with proficient syntactic competence utilize pauses for syntactic planning. Summarizing across the three studies, the emerging picture is a strong association between morphosyntactic planning and speaking time, as shown in a path analysis (Figure 4), the higher occurrence of disfluencies in people with predominantly morphosyntactic deficits (Faroqi-Shah et al, 2022) and those who successfully produce longer utterances (Salis & DeDe, 2022). While the latter two findings might appear contradictory, the common theme is that syntactic planning is associated with a high time cost.…”

“…Pause length is another metric of language fluency. Salis and DeDe (2022) found that longer pauses occurred within longer sentences in the narratives of mildly aphasic and neurotypical speakers. Thus syntactic planning has a time cost and individuals with proficient syntactic competence utilize pauses for syntactic planning.…”

“…A critical question is whether slow speech rate and morphosyntactic deficits are a happenstance cooccurrence or whether there could be a mechanistic relationship between these two symptoms. Here we examine data from studies that examined the relationship between morphosyntactic abilities and some aspect of speaking rate (Faroqi-Shah et al, 2022a;Nozari & Faroqi-Shah, 2017;Salis & Dede, 2022). In light of the previous critique of the fluent-nonfluent dichotomy, it is noteworthy that all three studies examined morphosyntactic abilities in aphasia as a continuous variable instead of using a categorical diagnosis of PSA-G. Nozari and Faroqi-Shah (2017) examined this question using a path analysis of narrative language samples of 112 persons with PSA (from MacWhinney et al, 2011).…”

“…and silences (Faroqi-Shah et al, 2022a). Disfluencies are interpreted as stalling for time for linguistic planning (Clark & Fox-Tree, 2002;Howell, 2007;Salis & DeDe, 2022). Faroqi-Shah et al (2022a) used relative scores of two continuous language measures, morphosyntactic productivity (DSS, Lee & Canter, 1971) and lexical diversity (Malvern & Richards, 1997), to calculate a difference score (the Standardized Syntax Semantics Difference Score, SSSD).…”

Preliminary Procedures to Develop Storytelling-Based Assessment for Aging and Neurogenic Disorders

“…MacWhinney (2000)는 신데렐라 스토리텔링 과제를 사 용하여 실어증 환자의 핵심 어휘(core lexicon) 산출 능력을 확인하 였는데, 정상 통제군에 비해 실어증 환자가 명사나 동사와 같은 이 야기 속 핵심 단어의 산출이 유의하게 저하된다는 사실을 검증하 기도 하였다. 그뿐만 아니라 실어증 환자의 실시간 문장 처리 능력 을 확인하는 최신 연구에서도 신데렐라 스토리텔링 과제를 통해 얻 어진 발화 샘플을 사용하고 있다 (Salis & DeDe, 2022). 신데렐라 이 야기 외에도 스토리가 있는 그림책을 이용하여 연결 발화를 수집 하고, 신경언어장애군의 언어 산출 능력을 분석한 연구들은 다양 하게 존재한다 (Ash et al, 2006;Kim et al, 2019;Myers et al, 2022;Wright & Capilouto, 2012) (Ha, Jung, & Sim, 2009) (Byun, Shin, Kim, & Kim, 2009;Shin, 2016;Kim & Sung, 2014) a SMCQ = Subjective memory complaints questionnaire (Youn et al, 2009).…”