Effects of Relative Language Abilities on Cross-Language Generalization Following Aphasia Treatment

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Effects of Relative Language Abilities on Cross-Language Generalization Following Aphasia Treatment Zahra Hejazi1*, Yaxiry Nieves Dominguez2*, Rachel Dilone2*, Priscilla Saldivia2*, Kathy Velasco2*, Katherine Paulino1* and Mira Goral1, 2* 1 The Graduate Center, City University of New York, United States 2 Lehman College, United States Bilingual and multilingual individuals with aphasia exhibit various patterns of impairment across their languages, from comparable abilities in all languages to differing degrees of impairment in each language (Ansaldo & Saidi, 2014). This adds more complexity to the language recovery patterns of individuals with aphasia and the selection of language of intervention which best benefits all languages. Although studies that show improvements in both the treated and non-treated languages are limited (e.g., Faroqi-Shah, Frymark, Mullen & Wang, 2010), some early studies suggest cross language generalization in multilingual individuals with aphasia (e.g., Fredman, 1975). Nonetheless, language intervention in individual’s both or all languages is not always available and often, due to clinician availability, language intervention is provided in the dominant language of the environment regardless of the language abilities of the individual with aphasia (Kiran, Sandberg, Gray, Ascenso, & Kester, 2013). Thus, it is critical to identify a measure that facilitates language choice during intervention and enhances eventual efficacy of intervention. Number of factors are involved in cross language generalization, such as language proficiency, similarity of two languages, manner of language acquisition, and frequency of language use (Goral, Rosas, Conner, Maul, & Obler, 2012). In this presentation, we focus on the effect of relative post-stroke language abilities on cross-language generalization following a single language treatment. We will present outcomes of language treatment administered to three bilingual individuals with aphasia as part of an ongoing research study. Three Spanish-English bilingual individuals with aphasia who exhibited different patterns of post-stroke language abilities were enrolled in the study. They completed at least one block of single-language treatment which included 10-15 sessions and 23-36 hours per treatment block. Each participant was assessed in each of their languages before and after each treatment block using a comprehensive battery of comprehension and production tests. We examined the patterns of cross-language facilitation and/or inhibition following intervention. The outcomes suggest that the cross-language generalization or inhibition depends on the relative post-stroke language abilities in each of a bilingual’s two languages. For example, for a Spanish-English bilingual who learned English as a second language, had achieved high proficiency and was a highly proficient bilingual before the stroke, but experienced greater difficulty in English than in Spanish after the stroke, treatment in English improved his connected speech production (as measured by proportions of content information units, CIUs to total verbal units) in English. However, treatment in Spanish did not enhance, and possibly decreased the accessibility to English. In contrast, relative improvement in both English and Spanish following single language treatment (Spanish) was observed for the Spanish-English bilingual participant who experienced comparable difficulty in both English and Spanish language abilities after stroke. The third participant experienced severe impairments in both English and Spanish language abilities post-stroke and therefore no consistent improvement was observed in either languages following treatment in Spanish. These results suggest that relative language abilities after stroke may be a predictor of cross-language generalization and/or inhibition following a single language intervention. Figure 1 References Ansaldo, A. I., & Saidi, L. G. (2014). Aphasia therapy in the age of globalization: Cross- linguistic therapy effects in bilingual aphasia. Behavioural Neurology, 2014. Faroqi-Shah, Y., Frymark, T., Mullen, R., & Wang, B. (2010). Effect of treatment for bilingual individuals with aphasia: A systematic review of the evidence. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 23(4), 319-341. Fredman, M. (1975). The effect of therapy given in Hebrew on the home language of the bilingual or polyglot adult aphasic in Israel. British Journal of Disorders of Communication, 10(1), 61-69. Goral, M., Rosas, J., Conner, P. S., Maul, K. K., & Obler, L. K. (2012). Effects of language proficiency and language of the environment on aphasia therapy in a multilingual. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 25(6), 538-551. Kiran, S., Sandberg, C., Gray, T., Ascenso, E., & Kester, E. (2013). Rehabilitation in bilingual aphasia: Evidence for within-and between-language generalization. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Keywords: bilingual aphasia, Cross-language generalisation, cross-language inhibition, Aphasia treatment, Language abilities Conference: Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting, Macau, Macao, SAR China, 27 Oct - 29 Oct, 2019. Presentation Type: Poster presentation Topic: Not eligible for student award Citation: Hejazi Z, Nieves Dominguez Y, Dilone R, Saldivia P, Velasco K, Paulino K and Goral M (2019). Effects of Relative Language Abilities on Cross-Language Generalization Following Aphasia Treatment. Front. Hum. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2019.01.00110 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 07 May 2019; Published Online: 09 Oct 2019. * Correspondence: Ms. Zahra Hejazi, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York City, United States, hejazi_mahsa@yahoo.com Ms. Yaxiry Nieves Dominguez, Lehman College, Bronx, New York, 10468, United States, yaxiry.nieves@lc.cuny.edu Ms. Rachel Dilone, Lehman College, Bronx, New York, 10468, United States, rachel.dilone@lc.cuny.edu Ms. Priscilla Saldivia, Lehman College, Bronx, New York, 10468, United States, priscilla.saldivia@lc.cuny.edu Ms. Kathy Velasco, Lehman College, Bronx, New York, 10468, United States, velasco.kathy@gmail.com Ms. Katherine Paulino, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York City, United States, kpaulino1@gradcenter.cuny.edu Dr. Mira Goral, Lehman College, Bronx, New York, 10468, United States, mira.goral@lehman.cuny.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Zahra Hejazi Yaxiry Nieves Dominguez Rachel Dilone Priscilla Saldivia Kathy Velasco Katherine Paulino Mira Goral Google Zahra Hejazi Yaxiry Nieves Dominguez Rachel Dilone Priscilla Saldivia Kathy Velasco Katherine Paulino Mira Goral Google Scholar Zahra Hejazi Yaxiry Nieves Dominguez Rachel Dilone Priscilla Saldivia Kathy Velasco Katherine Paulino Mira Goral PubMed Zahra Hejazi Yaxiry Nieves Dominguez Rachel Dilone Priscilla Saldivia Kathy Velasco Katherine Paulino Mira Goral Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.