German Language Adaptation of the NAVS (NAVS-G) and of the NAT (NAT-G): Testing Grammar in Aphasia.

Ruth Ditges,Mariacristina Musso,Elena Barbieri,Dorothee Kümmerer,Cynthia K Thompson,Marek-Marsel Mesulam,Sandra Weintraub,Nils Schröter,Cornelius Weiller

doi:10.3390/brainsci11040474

Abstract

Grammar provides the framework for understanding and producing language. In aphasia, an acquired language disorder, grammatical deficits are diversified and widespread. However, the few assessments for testing grammar in the German language do not consider current linguistic, psycholinguistic, and functional imaging data, which have been shown to be crucial for effective treatment. This study developed German language versions of the Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences (NAVS-G) and the Northwestern Anagram Test (NAT-G) to examine comprehension and production of verbs, controlling for the number and optionality of verb arguments, and sentences with increasing syntactic complexity. The NAVS-G and NAT-G were tested in 27 healthy participants, 15 right hemispheric stroke patients without aphasia, and 15 stroke patients with mild to residual aphasia. Participants without aphasia showed near-perfect performance, with the exception of (object) relative sentences, where accuracy was associated with educational level. In each patient with aphasia, deficits in more than one subtest were observed. The within and between population-groups logistic mixed regression analyses identified significant impairments in processing syntactic complexity at the verb and sentence levels. These findings indicate that the NAVS-G and NAT-G have potential for testing grammatical competence in (German) stroke patients.

Highlights

A speaker’s ability to use a language requires mapping between an unlimited number of thoughts and meanings, and an unlimited number of words and associated sound sequences [1,2]
The within and between populationgroups logistic mixed regression analyses identified significant impairments in processing syntactic complexity at the verb and sentence levels. These findings indicate that the Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences (NAVS)-G and Northwestern Anagram Test (NAT)-G have potential for testing grammatical competence in (German) stroke patients
This study presents the adaptation of the NAVS and NAT to the German language, documenting its ability to detect grammar deficits in (German) stroke patients with chronic mild to minimal language impairments

Summary

Introduction

A speaker’s ability to use a language requires mapping between an unlimited number of thoughts and meanings, and an unlimited number of words and associated sound sequences [1,2]. Argument valence sets the structure of arguments and expresses the relationships among nouns in various thematic roles (see the Projection Principle and the theta criterion [9,11]). Each verb-argument assigns a specific so-called thematic role, for example, the agent (corresponding to the noun phrase (NP) in subject position), the theme (e.g., NP in object position that is affected by the action), and the goal that the action leads to [12]. “to put” is a verb with three obligatory arguments and requires at least three participant (thematic) roles, i.e., agent, theme, and goal. A sentence requires the correct expression of all these arguments as in, for example, “The man (agent) is putting the box (theme) on the shelf (goal).”

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