Thesis (M.S.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Some persons with aphasia exhibit a selective verb deficit, which results in a reduced ability to produce verbs in most contexts. A functional level (Bock & Levelt, 1994) impairment may result in impaired sentence production because the verb serves as the semantic-syntactic interface of a sentence. This interface is related to a verb’s relationship with its arguments/thematics. Arguments fill the syntactic slots of subject and object, and those same words serve as thematic roles by referring to who does what to whom. The current study investigates the effect of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) on sentence production using a single subject experimental design across subjects in 4 participants, 2 with nonfluent aphasia and 2 with fluent aphasia. Participants received semantic treatment aimed at re-strengthening the connections between a verb (e.g., measure) and related thematic pairs that refer to the doer and receiver of the action (e.g., carpenter/lumber, chef/sugar). The ability to produce thematic role pairs for trained verbs was tested during treatment while generalization to the ability to produce sentences containing a subject, verb, and object in a picture description task with trained verbs (e.g., The carpenter is measuring the stairs.) and semantically related untrained verbs (e.g., The nurse is weighing the baby.) was monitored. In addition, pre- and post-treatment single word retrieval of verbs (The Northwestern Verb Production Battery (NVPB) (Thompson, 2002)) and nouns (The Boston Naming Test (Goodglass & Kaplan, 1983)) was examined as well as sentence production abilities in unrelated picture description (NVPB) and constrained connected speech tasks. All participants met treatment criteria and exhibited generalization to sentence production with sentences containing trained and semantically related untrained verbs. Participants 1, 2, and 3 exhibited improvements on all pre- and post-treatment measures, including connected speech. Participant 4 exhibited gains on multiple measures but did not show improvement in connected speech. These findings indicate that treatment aimed at strengthening the verb network results in improved word retrieval in naming and sentence production across multiple tasks. Theoretical and clinical implications regarding the impact of using VNeST on rehabilitation of sentence production deficits in aphasia are discussed. / text

published_or_final_version / Language Studies / Master / Master of Philosophy

No description available.

With the growing amount of citizens with another mother tongue than Swedish, the need for assessment instruments in other languages than Swedish within the Swedish health care increases. To enable this, the knowledge of multilingualism and adequate assessments are required. The aim is to develop a modern Arabic version of a screening material that is comparable to what is used in the Swedish clinic in the assessment of people diagnosed with aphasia. In the present study, Short Aphasia Examination (Kortfattad Afasiprövning), which is one of the few screening material is available in Swedish and among the ten most frequently used assessment materials (Blom Johansson, Carlsson & Sonnander, 2011). Translation and adaptation was made to the Standard Arabic (KAPARABISKA) and Arabic dialect of Hadari (KAPHADARI). The results were also compared with the participants' self-rated language abilities. The study is also implementing a comparison between KAP and the Hadari Arabic screening version of the Bilingual Aphasia Test (BAT). The translated assessment materials were tested on six participants, where five had Arabic as their mother tongue and one participant had Arabic and Swedish as mother tongues. The result indicates that the Arabic versions of KAP and BAT are assessing the language ability of the participants almost equally, but that KAP is assessing reading and writing abilities on a higher difficulty. The KAP assessments were conducted during half as long time as BAT. Both the KAP assessments and the BAT assessment identified participants with limited literacy skills, which indicates the importance of inquiring the patient’s education level to avoid false interpretation of the results. / Antalet människor som är utlandsfödda ökar i Sverige. Detta kan leda till att allt fler människor som insjuknar i afasi har ett annat modersmål än svenska och med detta följer behovet av undersökningsmaterial och kunskap om flerspråkighet. Syftet är att utarbeta en arabisk version av ett modernt screeningmaterial, som är jämförbart med vad som används i svensk klinik vid bedömning av nyinsjuknade personer med afasi. I föreliggande studie användes Kortfattad Afasiprövning (KAP), som är ett av få screeningmaterial som finns på svenska och bland de tio mest använda bedömningsmaterialen (Blom Johansson, Carlsson & Sonnander, 2011). Översättning och anpassning gjordes till klassisk arabiska (KAPARABISKA) och hadaridialekt (KAPHADARI). Resultatet jämfördes även med deltagarnas självskattning av språkförmågor. Efter översättnings- och anpassningsarbetet testades och jämfördes alla bedömningsmaterialen på sex stycken deltagare, av vilka fem hade arabiska som modersmål och en hade svenska och arabiska som modersmål. Resultatet visade att de arabiska versionerna av KAP och BAT bedömde språkförmågorna hos samtliga deltagare på ett likvärdigt sätt, men att KAP bedömer vissa språkliga förmågor med en högre svårighetsgrad. KAP tog ungefär hälften så lång tid att genomföra än BAT. Båda bedömningsmaterialen identifierade deltagare med begränsad läs- och skrivförmåga vilket visades i intervjun och självskattningen. Patientens skolgång bör därför efterfrågas för att undvika feltolkning av resultat.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on November 26, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 311-328). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 40-43).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2004. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 40-43)