The purpose of this investigation was to describe the attitudes of individuals who were spouses of patients with aphasia. Using modified Q-methodology, 15 spouses of fluent aphasic patients, 15 spouses of nonfluent aphasic patients and 30 matched controls completed a 70-item Q-sort constructed specifically for this study. The spouses of nonfluent aphasic patients were found to have a greater number of negative attitudes toward their spouses than were the spouses of fluent aphasic patients. The spouses of patients in both aphasia groups were found to have a greater number of negative attitudes toward their spouses than the matched controls. In addition, six factors (Compliance, Desirability, Egocentricity, Independence, Maturity, and Sociability) representative of the spouse-patient relationship were identified that incorporated the most commonly held attitudes by the spouses of patients in both aphasia groups.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a newly adapted treatment, Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization-Written, to improve microlinguistic and macrolinguistic aspects of written and spoken discourse of people with mild aphasia. Background: Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization-Written takes a top-down approach to language rehabilitation that focuses on the cognitive-linguistic processes required for spoken and written discourse production. Methods: Five people with mild aphasia received Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization-Written across two single subject experimentally controlled pre-post treatment design studies. Results: All participants demonstrated improvement in both written and spoken discourse generalization measures. Improvement in functional communication, and confrontation naming was also observed for some participants. Conclusions: The results reported in these two studies provide preliminary evidence that Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization-Written is a viable treatment option to improve both written and spoken discourse in people with mild aphasia. Participants demonstrated different pre-treatment profiles and mechanisms of improvement, which are discussed.

For many years, treatment for word retrieval deficits has involved the use of various cueing techniques to help trigger retrieval of target words. Research has shown that accuracy for future retrieval of target words is best achieved by training subjects with semantically based cues. Personalized cues that are created by the subjects themselves to help remember a target word have been shown to be the most effective of the semantically based cues. However, even with the use of personalized cues, accuracy for naming tasks has been found to decrease once training is completed. Current research in memory indicates that, for normal subjects, techniques that facilitate future recall of information include testing, additional study, overlearning, and distributed practice. This research examined the influence of posttraining maintenance sessions on the long term memory of subjects with aphasia. The goal was to compare the effect on naming accuracy for stimuli (a) presented in two additional training sessions (b) presented in one additional session, (c) not presented in any additional sessions. Additional sessions presented opportunities for testing, study, overlearning, and distributed practice for selected stimuli. Three adult male subjects with moderate aphasia created their own cues to help remember 30 pictures of famous characters. During training sessions, these cues were presented to trigger name recall. Following the end of the 3-week training period, the 30 pictures were divided into groups of 10 cards called, A, B, and C. There were two additional training sessions for A, one for B, and none for C. A probe following the last session showed that for two of the subjects, the addition of posttraining maintenance sessions acted to enhance naming accuracy, and two sessions resulted in much higher accuracy than one session. This is consistent with research with normal subjects and suggests that short intermittent training sessions can help maintain naming accuracy with subjects with aphasia.

Problem-solving abilities of individuals with aphasia have received limited attention in their assessment and remediation. At this time, there is substantially more information available on the linguistic performance of persons with aphasia than on their cognitive processing performance. Assessment of problem-solving abilities in this population has typically used tasks with low verbal loadings. However, both linguistic and cognitive competence are required for effective communication and activities of daily life. The purpose of the present study was to determine if mild-to-moderate subjects with aphasia differed in their question-asking strategies as compared with normal subjects. A modification of Mosher and Hornsby's (1966) Twenty Questions task was used. The Twenty Questions task is considered a verbal problem-solving task that requires a cognitive strategy. Subjects were 12 adults with mild-to-moderate aphasia recruited from the out-patient intervention groups at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center and 12 non-brain-injured adult controls from the Portland community. The experimental task required subjects to ask "yes" or "no" questions to identify a target item that the examiner was thinking of in a JO-picture array. Items in the array were selected from common categories of transportation, furniture, tools, animals, foods, and clothing. Subjects were told that the object of the "game" was to use as few questions as possible to guess the item the examiner was thinking of. Subjects were administered the experimental task three times. Aphasic subjects were found to be significantly impaired in their use of question-asking strategies. They needed significantly more questions to identify target items than the normal controls. Their question-asking strategies used significantly fewer and less efficient constraint seeking questions than normal subjects. Some aphasic subjects used no constraint-seeking questions at all, but only hypothesis-scanning questions that targeted only one item. These results are consistent with the question-asking strategies of other brain-injured populations as assessed by the Twenty Questions task. Results suggested that individuals with aphasia may have cognitive difficulties in addition to their specific linguistic impairments.

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.

A afasia é considerada como uma redução e disfunção do uso da linguagem em que há alteração de mecanismos lingüísticos em todos os níveis, manifestando-se tanto no aspecto expressivo quanto no receptivo da linguagem oral e escrita, embora em diferentes graus em cada uma dessas modalidades. O pressuposto utilizado neste trabalho é o de que a língua, enquanto processo simbólico, partindo de um contexto social, atua como prática social, manifestando-se e funcionando como atividade oral e escrita, nas atividades constitutivas do homem, com a qual podemos construir sentidos. No entanto, entre essas duas modalidades da língua, a oralidade ocupa um lugar de destaque com relação à escrita nos estudos sobre Afasia. Diante disto, este trabalho irá enfocar a produção escrita dos afásicos em sua relação com a oralidade, visando verificar, na produção escrita do afásico, possíveis marcas de uma oralidade presentes ou não na expressão oral desse sujeito. Para este objetivo, foram selecionadas as produções escritas de 06 (seis) sujeitos afásicos, de ambos os gêneros, que participaram e freqüentaram regularmente o Grupo de Convivência para Afásicos da Universidade Católica de Pernambuco, durante o período de 22 (vinte e dois) encontros. Os estudos para o tema apresentado foram fundamentados em pesquisas sobre a organização do discurso do afásico e no aprofundamento teórico sobre fala e escrita, com destaque para os estudos sobre a fala e a escrita, a partir da perspectiva de Marcuschi (2007a), enfocando a relação entre essas duas modalidades da linguagem. Com isso, pôde-se verificar a presença de 10 (dez) tipos de marcas de oralidade presentes nas produções escritas dos afásicos deste trabalho, através de atividades com 06 (seis) gêneros textuais, desenvolvidos através da realização da Oficina de Fala e Escrita no Grupo, destacando-se a correção e o pouco uso de acentos e pontuação como os tipos de marcas de oralidade mais recorrentes, presente na escrita de 05 (cinco) sujeitos, e, a modalização, a repetição e a paráfrase como as menos recorrentes, presentes na escrita de apenas 01 (um) sujeito. A relevância do trabalho foi identificar características e oferecer estratégias para a superação das dificuldades enfrentadas por esse sujeito, buscando contribuir para o desenvolvimento e aprimoramento do restabelecimento de sua linguagem, aproveitando todos os recursos utilizados pelo afásico para se comunicar, de modo a possibilitar uma intervenção que enfoque tanto a fala quanto a escrita, colaborando na readequação da oralidade e em uma recuperação mais efetiva da linguagem como um todo, promovendo a re-inserção social do afásico em seu meio. / Aphasia is considered a reduction and dysfunction of the use of the language in which there is alteration of linguistic mechanisms in all the levels, shown in the expressive aspect how much in the receptive one of the oral and written language to different degrees in each type. The presupposition used in this work is that the language, while symbolic process, leaves from a social context, and acts like social practice, showing and working like oral and written activity in the constitutive activities of the man with which we can build senses. Between these two kinds of the language, the orality occupies a place of distinction regarding the writing in the studies on Aphasia. Before this, this work would be done to tackle the written production of the aphasic person in his relation with the orality, aiming to check in the written production of the aphasic at possible present marks of orality or not in the oral expression of this subject. For this objective, the written productions of 6 (six) subjects were selected. Aphasic people of both types, which announced and frequented regularly the Group of Familiarity for Aphasic people of the Catholic University of Pernambuco, during the period of 22 (twenty two) meetings. The studies for the presented subject were based on damages to the organization of the speech of the aphasic people and on the theoretical detailed studies on speech and writing, detaching the relation between these two kinds of the language. With that, one could check the presence of 10 (ten) types of marks of oralities in the written productions of the aphasic person involved in this work through activities with 6 (six) textual types developed through the realization of the Workshop of Speech and Written in the Group. When the correction is standing out by the most frequent mark of orality, this is present in the writing of 5 (five) subjects. The relevance of the work identifies characteristics and it offers strategies for overcoming of the difficulties faced by this citizen, looking to contribute to the development and improvement of the restoration of his language, using all the resources used by the aphasic person to communicate, when there is making possible an intervention which approach so much the speech as for writing, contributing to the readaptation of the orality and to a recuperation more effective of the language as a whole, promoting the social re-insertion of the aphasic citizen in his environment. Keywords: aphasia, relation between orality written, textual types, mark of orality.

Considerable interest has been expressed regarding the issue of recovery of language following head injury in childhood. The two questions most frequently addressed are: 1) Do children recover linguistic abilities faster and better than adults after suffering a head Injury? 2) Is the linguistic disorder, if evident, mainly syntactic or lexical in nature? We have examined 8 children from 6;10-17; 0 who suffered traumatic head injury and who are in varying stages of recovery. Each child has been matched with a normal child of the same age. Despite reports of complete recovery from childhood aphasia, our results indicate persistent word finding problems, with otherwise normal language abilities. There was no correlation between severity of deficit and age at injury or length of coma. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate

The purpose of this study was to compare the graphic production of fluent and non-fluent aphasic groups in terms of motoric and linguistic characteristics at three intervals of recovery, and to analyze change over time after combining the fluent and non-fluent aphasic groups.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:24:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_angela_aragao.pdf: 2331190 bytes, checksum: 9c2adc94211ed5b096e2a430cc00776d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-02-28 / Aphasia is a disease that interferes directly in the communication of the individual, specially the in expressive one. In most cases, when the aphasic is in the process of (re) empowerment, is given more emphasis on the aspect of oral, leaving aside the writing. However, communication consists of two ways, and therefore it is interesting development work aimed also to write. It is noted that in some cases, the writing, is so poor as to oral and it is necessary to include it in the therapeutic process. Thus, the study of textual production, in written form, using the different genres textual, had intended to observe the changes that aphasia carries on writing of the subject affected by this pathology, in addition to providing a new therapeutic approach in the process of afásico. To do so, participated in this search 04 subject bearers of aphasia that are part of the Workshop on Writing Group's Convivência of the Catholic University of Pernambuco (UNICAP), which aims to address the issues and work related to the written language. The analysis of the qualitative data was, as this study is proposed to observe the production textual the aphasic before textual different genres, and so identify what kind textual more applicant and produced more easily by the bearer of aphasia. After analysis of the data collected has been that afásicos showed ease in producing textual genres linked to concrete situations, as opposed to production of the genera needing achieve a relationship with abstract situations. Thus, it is important that fonoaudiólogos, admit a posture functional instead of organicista, enabling the distancing of tests, focusing uses descontextualizados of language, which exclude the heterogeneous and subjective aspects of the language. Therefore, the (re) Empowerment of aphasia should allow the afásicos use practices of writing that only the written genres can provide, since this attitude shows itself as a path for the fruitful work therapeutic fonoaudiológico / alterações que a afasia acarreta na escrita do sujeito acometido por esta patologia, além de proporcionar uma nova abordagem no processo terapêutico do afásico. Para tanto, participaram desta pesquisa 04 sujeitos portadores de afasia que fazem parte da Oficina de Escrita do Grupo de Convivência da Universidade Católica de Pernambuco (UNICAP), a qual tem como finalidade abordar e trabalhar os aspectos relacionados à linguagem escrita. A análise dos dados foi qualitativa, uma vez que este estudo se propôs a observar a produção textual do afásico diante de diferentes gêneros textuais, e assim identificar qual o gênero textual mais recorrente e produzido com maior facilidade pelo portador de afasia. Após a análise dos dados coletados, foi possível observar que os afásicos apresentaram facilidade em produzir gêneros textuais ligados a situações concretas, em contraposição à produção dos gêneros que necessitaram realizar uma relação com situações abstratas. Deste modo, é importante que os fonoaudiólogos admitam uma postura funcional ao invés da organicista, possibilitando o distanciamento dos testes que focalizam usos descontextualizados da linguagem, os quais excluem os aspectos subjetivos e heterogêneos da linguagem. Portanto, a (re)habilitação da afasia deve permitir que os afásicos utilizem práticas de escrita que só os gêneros escritos podem proporcionar, uma vez que esta postura mostra-se como um caminho frutífero para o trabalho terapêutico fonoaudiológico