Aphasic Participants Research Articles

Verb impairment in aphasia: A priming study of body-part overlap

Background: Verb production impairments are well documented in aphasia, especially in non-fluent aphasias with lesions of the left frontal lobe. Evidence is inconclusive about whether the impaired verb production is accompanied by inefficient processing and comprehension of verbs. It is unknown if specific semantic features of verbs, such as knowledge of the effector (body-part used to implement the action), are automatically activated by aphasic individuals during verb processing. This question is especially relevant given the growing evidence that unimpaired speakers mentally simulate the action portrayed by a verb, and action simulation is an inherent part of language comprehension (embodied action semantics). There is additional evidence that reading or listening to verbs depicting hand, mouth, or leg actions activates frontal motor areas associated with implementing hand, mouth, and leg actions respectively in unimpaired individuals (semantic somatotopy). Aims: This study examined on-line verb processing in nonfluent aphasic participants who are impaired in production of verbs. We investigated (1) whether somatotopic (body-part) information is automatically accessed when processing verbs, (2) how the time course of this activation influences processing of other somatotopically related verbs, and (3) whether somatotopic information that is devoid of action context (as in line drawings of body-parts) can affect downstream verb processing. Methods & Procedures: A visual-visual lexical priming paradigm was used. In Experiments 1 and 2, the prime–target verb pairs were somatotopically congruent, incongruent, or neutral nonword (licking–kissing; licking–clapping, xxxx–clapping respectively), and the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was short or long. Instead of verbs, the primes in Experiment 3 were line drawings of congruent or incongruent body-parts. Six nonfluent agrammatic aphasic individuals with verb retrieval difficulties participated in the study. Outcomes & Results: Aphasic participants were highly accurate in their responses. Lexical decision speed was influenced by the preceding primes in a specific pattern: somatotopically congruent primes caused a delay (interference) in response times, and this diminished with longer SOA. Incongruent primes had no effect on response times. Picture primes caused a general delay in lexical decision speed, but this was not a somatotopically specific effect. This pattern of results is identical to that observed with unimpaired participants. Conclusions: This group of verb-impaired aphasic individuals was able to automatically (and rapidly) activate somatotopic features of verbs, showing little evidence of impaired lexical-semantic representations. Hence verb processing and verb naming were found to dissociate. In addition, this study extends our understanding of language processing by showing that actions are simulated by the human brain, even when verbs are encountered as de-contextualised single words. Further, somatotopic information is necessary, but not sufficient, for action simulation.

Outcome of a One-Month Therapy Intensive for Chronic Aphasia: Variable Individual Responses

We examined the outcome of a 1-month intensive treatment block for people with chronic aphasia. The selected participants were eight chronically impaired people (mean months post-onset [MPO], 34). We conducted pre- and post-treatment assessments using the English-language version of the Aachen Aphasia Test (EAAT) and the Communicative Effectiveness Index (CETI). The group had significant overall improvement following treatment, which was maintained for 1 month, most significant changes seen on the EAAT were mainly in naming, comprehension, and reading and writing. Improvement was also observed on the CETI. Individual responses to treatment were variable, with some participants making more progress than others. Although the more mildly aphasic participant made most gains overall, the most severe and oldest participant made the most gains. We observed significant improvement in some subtests for some participants 1 month after treatment had ceased, suggesting a delayed effect of treatment. We conclude that short-term blocks of intensive treatment for chronically aphasic individuals can be effective.

Tense processing in Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia

Background: Broca's aphasic or agrammatic participants are assumed to have problems with the inflection of moved verbs. Recently, Bastiaanse (2008) has shown that verb inflection in base position is also difficult for these participants, especially if reference to the past is involved. However, Bastiaanse only examined the data of Broca's aphasic participants and restricted herself to verb production. In the current study we will examine the existence of a more central deficit in tense marking in production and comprehension in aphasic participants. Aims: The production and comprehension of tensed verbs will be studied in a group of Broca's aphasic participants. The data of a group of participants suffering from Wernicke's aphasia will be used for comparison. Methods & Procedures: Seven participants with Broca's aphasia and five with Wernicke's aphasia performed a sentence‐to‐picture matching task for comprehension and a sentence completion task for production with present or past tense as the crucial conditions. Both tests contained 40 items. Results on the tests were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Outcomes & Results: Although production was more impaired than comprehension in Broca's aphasic participants, past tense was more difficult to interpret than present tense, especially for those participants who showed comprehension problems. Problems with the interpretation of tense were also found in the group of Wernicke's aphasic participants. Furthermore, for these participants past tense forms were also more difficult to produce than present tense forms. Conclusions: The results suggest that past tense in general is difficult to process for aphasic participants. We relate this finding to the semantic notion of past tense.

Automatic processing of wh- and NP-movement in agrammatic aphasia: Evidence from eyetracking

Individuals with agrammatic Broca's aphasia show deficits in comprehension of non-canonical wh-movement and NP-movement sentences. Previous work using eyetracking has found that agrammatic and unimpaired listeners show very similar patterns of automatic processing for wh-movement sentences. The current study attempts to replicate this finding for sentences with wh-movement (in object relatives in the current study) and to extend it to sentences with NP-movement (passives). For wh-movement sentences, aphasic and control participants' eye-movements differed most dramatically in late regions of the sentence and post-offset, with aphasic participants exhibiting lingering attention to a salient but grammatically impermissible competitor. The eye-movement differences between correct and incorrect trials for wh-movement sentences were similar, with incorrect trials also exhibiting competition from an impermissible interpretation late in the sentence. Furthermore, the two groups exhibited similar eye-movement patterns in response to passive NP-movement sentences, but showed little evidence of gap-filling for passives. The results suggest that aphasic and unimpaired individuals may generate similar representations during comprehension, but that aphasics are highly vulnerable to interference from alternative interpretations (Ferreira, F. (2003). The misinterpretation of noncanonical sentences. Cognitive Psychology, 47(2), 164–203).

Production and comprehension of unaccusatives in aphasia

Background: Recent studies have reported impairments in the production of sentences containing unaccusative verbs (e.g., The ball bounced down the street) in agrammatic patients. In these sentences, the subject is the theme of the verb, resulting in a non‐standard order of thematic roles (often called non‐canonical thematic role order). Aims: We tested the hypothesis that aphasic patients would be affected by these features of unaccusatives in both production and comprehension, and that they would show similar deficits in sentences with unaccusative verbs and passive sentences, which also have non‐canonical thematic role order. Methods & Procedures: Single‐word naming, sentence production, and sentence–picture matching tasks were administered to a group of 9 aphasic participants and 12 age‐ and education‐matched control participants. Outcomes & Results: The aphasic patients performed less well than the controls, and there were effects of the presence of movement in both groups and an interaction between group and sentence type in the sentence production task. Conclusions: These findings support the view that non‐canonical thematic role order makes action naming, sentence production, and sentence comprehension more difficult, and that aphasic patients are more affected by the demands of these tasks than controls.

Binding in agrammatic aphasia: Processing to comprehension

Background: Theories of comprehension deficits in Broca's aphasia have largely been based on the pattern of deficit found with movement constructions. However, some studies have found comprehension deficits with binding constructions, which do not involve movement. Aims: This study investigates online processing and offline comprehension of binding constructions, such as reflexive (e.g., himself) and pronoun (e.g., him) constructions in unimpaired and aphasic individuals in an attempt to evaluate theories of agrammatic comprehension. Methods & Procedures: Participants were eight individuals with agrammatic Broca's aphasia and eight age-matched unimpaired individuals. We used eyetracking to examine online processing of binding constructions while participants listened to stories. Offline comprehension was also tested. Outcomes & Results: The eye movement data showed that individuals with Broca's aphasia were able to automatically process the correct antecedent of reflexives and pronouns. In addition, their syntactic processing of binding was not delayed compared to normal controls. Nevertheless, offline comprehension of both pronouns and reflexives was significantly impaired compared to the control participants. This comprehension failure was reflected in the aphasic participants' eye movements at sentence end, where fixations to the competitor increased. Conclusions: These data suggest that comprehension difficulties with binding constructions seen in agrammatic aphasic patients are not due to a deficit in automatic syntactic processing or delayed processing. Rather, they point to a possible deficit in lexical integration.

Pronominal Resolution and Gap Filling in Agrammatic Aphasia: Evidence from Eye Movements

This paper reports the results of three studies examining comprehension and real-time processing of pronominal (Experiment 1) and Wh-movement (Experiments 2 and 3) structures in agrammatic and unimpaired speakers using eyetracking. We asked the following questions: (a) Is off-line comprehension of these constructions impaired in agrammatic listeners?, (b) Do agrammatic, like unimpaired, listeners show eye movement patterns indicative of automatic pronominal reference resolution and/or gap-filling?, and (c) Do eyetracking patterns differ when sentences are correctly versus incorrectly interpreted, or do automatic processes prevail in spite of comprehension failure? Results showed that off-line comprehension of both pronoun and Wh-movement structures was impaired in our agrammatic cohort. However, the aphasic participants showed visual evidence of real-time reference resolution as they processed binding structures, including both pronouns and reflexives, as did our unimpaired control participants. Similarly, both the patients and the control participants showed patterns consistent with successful gap filling during processing of Wh-movement structures. For neither pronominal nor movement structures did we find evidence of delayed processing. Notably, these patterns were found for the aphasic participants even when they incorrectly interpreted target sentences, with the exception of object relative constructions. For incorrectly interpreted sentences, we found end of sentence lexical competition effects. These findings indicate that aberrant lexical integration, rather than representational deficits or generally slowed processing, may underlie agrammatic aphasic listener's comprehension failure.

Psych verb production and comprehension in agrammatic Broca's aphasia

This study examined the factors that affect agrammatic sentence production by testing eight agrammatic aphasic participants' comprehension and production of active and passive sentences using two types of English psych verbs, those with an Experiencer-marked subject (Subject-Experiencer (SubExp)) and those with an Experiencer-marked object (Object-Experiencer (ObjExp)). The Argument Structure Complexity Hypothesis (ASCH, [ J. Neuroling. 16 (2003) 151]) posits that the verb (and sentence) production difficulties observed in agrammatic aphasia can be attributed, at least in part, to the argument structure properties of verbs, with verbs that are marked for more complex argument structure (in terms of the number and type of arguments) presenting greater difficulty than those with less complex argument structure entries. Based on previous linguistic analyses of psych verbs, ObjExp psych verbs are more complex than SubjExp verbs. Therefore, we predicted that the former would present greater production (but not comprehension) difficulty than the latter. Results showed above chance comprehension of all sentence types, with the exception of SubjExp passive constructions, in which the subject position is occupied by a non-Experiencer argument. In active sentence production, ObjExp verbs were more impaired than SubjExp verbs. However, the opposite pattern was noted for passive sentence production. While all participants had difficulty producing passive sentences of both types, they showed better performance on ObjExp verbs, as compared to SubjExp verbs, in which the Experiencer is in the subject position. Further, agrammatic aphasic speakers showed a preference for producing actives for SubjExp verbs and passives for ObjExp verbs, indicating that the thematic role requirements of selected verbs (e.g., Experiencer, Theme) influence production patterns, as they do in normal speakers. These data, as well as the error patterns seen in our patients, support the ASCH and suggest that sentence production, disrupted in agrammatic aphasia, is impaired to a greater extent when the argument structure properties of the verb increase in complexity.

Spoken word processing and the effect of phonemic mismatch in aphasia

Background: There is evidence that, unlike in typical populations, initial lexical activation upon hearing spoken words in aphasic patients is not a direct reflection of the goodness of fit between the presented stimulus and the intended target. Earlier studies have mainly used short monosyllabic target words. Short words are relatively difficult to recognise because they are not highly redundant: changing one phoneme will often result in a (similar‐sounding) different word. Aims: The present study aimed to investigate sensitivity of the lexical recognition system in aphasia. The focus was on longer words that contain more redundancy, to investigate whether aphasic adults might be impaired in deactivation of strongly activated lexical candidates. This was done by studying lexical activation upon presentation of spoken polysyllabic pseudowords (such as procodile) to see to what extent mismatching phonemic information leads to deactivation in the face of overwhelming support for one specific lexical candidate. Methods & Procedures: Speeded auditory lexical decision was used to investigate response time and accuracy to pseudowords with a word‐initial or word‐final phonemic mismatch in 21 aphasic patients and in an age‐matched control group. Outcomes & Results: Results of an auditory lexical decision task showed that aphasic participants were less sensitive to phonemic mismatch if there was strong evidence for one particular lexical candidate, compared to the control group. Classifications of patients as Broca's vs Wernicke's or as fluent vs non‐fluent did not reveal differences in sensitivity to mismatch between aphasia types. There was no reliable relationship between measures of auditory verbal short‐term memory and lexical decision performance. Conclusions: It is argued that the aphasic results can best be viewed as lexical “overactivation” and that a verbal short‐term memory account is less appropriate.

Basic parameters of spontaneous speech as a sensitive method for measuring change during the course of aphasia

Spontaneous speech of aphasic persons is often scored on rating scales assessing aphasic symptoms. Rating scales have the advantage of an easy and fast scoring system, but might lack sensitivity. Quantitative analysis of either aphasic symptoms or basic parameters provides a useful alternative. Basic parameters are essential units of language like word categories or syntactic completeness and can be identified in both impaired and unimpaired adult and child language. To examine whether basic parameters of spontaneous speech are more sensitive to change during the course of recovery from aphasia than conventional spontaneous speech rating scales. Spontaneous speech samples of 28 aphasic participants were analysed using a quantitative computer-assisted method as well as conventional spontaneous speech rating scales before and after 7 weeks of intensive language treatment. The analysis focused on the following basic parameters: percentage words, percentage open class words, syntactic completeness, complexity, and mean length of utterances. The participants were also tested with the Aachen Aphasia Test before and after treatment. Significant change in at least one basic parameter was observed in 20 participants, while only four participants showed significant change in one of the spontaneous speech rating scales. In comparison with conventional spontaneous speech rating scales, the basic parameters proved to be more sensitive to change. For the time being, however, some limitations remain with regard to the specificity of the basic parameters. Thus, additional data are needed to provide further support of the clinical significance of the measured changes.

Testing the interplay of structure and meaning in aphasic sentence production

Background: Improving aphasic sentence production is a challenging endeavour, both for the speaker who must recover the linguistic skill and for the therapist who attempts to guide the process. Studies have demonstrated that treatment can often improve the sentence production ability of aphasic speakers, but with limited generalisation to new lexical content and untrained sentence structure. One factor that limits the outcome of production therapy may be the complexity of the relationship between the form and the meaning of a sentence. This is confounded by a limited array of diagnostic approaches for revealing what linguistic resources remain available to the aphasic speaker. Aims: In this study we tested a new format for eliciting sentence production in aphasia. Our goal was to reveal whether or not individual aphasic speakers were sensitive to certain semantic and syntactic elements of sentences that are believed to influence the sentence production process. Methods & Procedures: Using a modified sentence repetition format we explored the sentence production abilities of five fluent aphasic speakers under different conditions of lexical and/or structural manipulations. Lexical manipulations required substitution of a semantically related verb; structural manipulations required reordering of the post‐verbal arguments in different dative constructions (double object and prepositional) that express essentially the same message. Outcomes & Results: Response patterns obtained from the five aphasic participants revealed individual patterns of skill and sensitivity based on residual language ability. The implications of these results are discussed with reference to the potential for revealing elements of normal production patterns in aphasic speech, and the assumption that such information is important for developing more effective therapy for individuals with aphasia. Conclusions: Patterns of sentence production elicited in a modified sentence repetition task may reveal syntactic flexibility and residual syntactic knowledge in speakers with aphasia.

Exploring SentenceShaperTM: Treatment and augmentative possibilities

Background: Advances in computer technology have led to the development of innovative approaches to aphasia treatment. One example is SentenceShaperTM, a software program designed to support sentence production for people with nonfluent aphasia. Studies have demonstrated improvement in unaided and/or aided sentence production for some individuals using this program, suggesting therapeutic benefit. In addition, because SentenceShaperTM allows users to record and save spoken messages, it has the potential to augment everyday communication. Aims: The goals of this 4‐month case study were to explore first how using a beta version of SentenceShaperTM could support narrative production for an individual with nonfluent aphasia, and second how she would exploit its therapeutic and augmentative aspects to support her everyday communication. Methods & Procedures: The study, drawing on impairment‐based and social models of intervention, comprised two components. The first used quantitative measures to compare narratives produced before and after 12 weeks of using SentenceShaperTM. The second used qualitative methodologies to explore its impact on communication. Outcomes & Results: Quantitative measures showed an increase in morphosyntactic complexity of the aphasic participant's narratives, while measures of informativeness, efficiency, and narrative structure remained relatively unchanged. Findings from the second component revealed that, although the participant with aphasia used SentenceShaperTM messages for e‐mail and in conversation, neither she nor her mother readily accepted the use of the program to augment communication in everyday life. Conclusions: Reasons for this lack of acceptance are explored. Ways in which the combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies contributed to a deeper understanding of the findings are discussed

The Field Evaluation of a Mobile Digital Image Communication Application Designed for People with Aphasia

PhotoTalk is an application for a mobile device that allows people with aphasia to capture and manage digital photographs to support face-to-face communication. Unlike any other augmentative and alternative communication device for people with aphasia, PhotoTalk focuses solely on image capture and organization and is designed to be used independently. Our project used a streamlined process with three phases: (1) a rapid participatory design and development phase with two speech-language pathologists acting as representative users, (2) an informal usability study with five aphasic participants, which caught usability problems and provided preliminary feedback on the usefulness of PhotoTalk, and (3) a one-month field evaluation with two aphasic participants followed by a one-month secondary field evaluation with one aphasic participant, which showed that they all used it regularly and relatively independently, although not always for its intended communicative purpose. Our field evaluations demonstrated PhotoTalk's promise in terms of its usability and usefulness in everyday communication .

A psychometric analysis of functional category production in English agrammatic narratives

Hierarchical models of agrammatism propose that sentence production deficits can be accounted for in terms of clausal syntactic structure ( Friedmann & Grodzinsky, 1997; Hagiwara, 1995). Such theories predict that morpho-syntactic elements associated with higher nodes in the syntactic tree (complementizers and verb inflections) will be more impaired than elements associated with lower structural positions (negation markers and aspectual verb forms). While this hypothesis has been supported by the results of several studies ( Friedmann & Grodzinsky, 1997; Hagiwara, 1995), it has also been challenged on several grounds ( Burchert, Swoboda-Moll, & De Bleser, 2005a; Lee, 2003; Lee, Milman, & Thompson, 2005). In this paper the question of hierarchical structure was re-examined within the framework of Item Response Theory (IRT, Rasch, 1980). IRT is a probabilistic model widely used in the field of psychometrics to model behavioral constructs as numeric variables. In this study we examined production of functional categories (complementizers, verb inflections, negation markers, and aspectual verb forms) in narrative samples elicited from 18 individuals diagnosed with nonfluent aphasia and 18 matched controls. Data from the aphasic participants were entered into an IRT analysis to test (1) whether production of clausal functional categories can be represented as a variable on a numeric scale; and (2) whether production patterns were consistent with hierarchical syntactic structure. Pearson r correlation coefficients were also computed to determine whether there was a relation between functional category production and other indices of language performance. Results indicate that functional category production can be modeled as a numeric variable using IRT. Furthermore, although variability was observed across individuals, consistent patterns were evident when the data were interpreted within a probabilistic framework. Although functional category production was moderately correlated with a second measure of clausal structure (clause length), it was not correlated with more distant language constructs (noun/verb ratio and WAB A.Q.). These results suggest that functional category production is related to some, but not all, measures of agrammatic language performance.

Improving spelling and everyday writing after a CVA: A single‐case therapy study

Background: Recent years have seen a growing number of dysgraphia therapy studies informed by models of the normal writing mechanism (see Beeson & Rapcsak, 2002, for review). Although outcomes from these studies have been encouraging, measures are often confined to clinical tests, leaving it unclear whether everyday writing activities have benefited. This study similarly applied a processing model but was driven from the outset by the everyday writing goal of the aphasic participant. Aims: The study aimed to explore whether therapy could improve the note‐taking abilities of an aphasic individual. Evaluations aimed to determine whether gains reflected improvements to the writing mechanism and/or the application of writing strategies. Methods & Procedures: This is a single‐case therapy study of “Ray”, an individual with chronic aphasia and dysgraphia. Ray's priority for therapy was writing, with the goal of improving his note‐taking abilities for work. Ray's dysgraphia seemed due to a buffer‐level impairment, with length effects and errors of letter deletion, addition, transposition, and substitution. Therapy involved spelling practice and work on writing strategies. The outcome measures showed improvements both in note taking and in writing to dictation. Conclusions: The results suggested that therapy reduced the effects of Ray's buffer impairment and improved his use of writing strategies. The study demonstrates how model‐based thinking can be integrated with a functional approach in intervention.

Judgment of functional morphology in agrammatic aphasia

Individuals with agrammatic Broca's aphasia show deficits in production of functional morphemes like complementizers (e.g., that and if) and tense and agreement markers (e.g., –ed and –s), with complementizers often being more impaired than verbal morphology. However, there has been comparatively little work examining patients’ ability to comprehend or judge the grammaticality of these morphemes. This paper investigates comprehension of complementizers and verb inflections in two timed grammaticality-judgment experiments. In Experiment 1, participants with agrammatic Broca's aphasia and grammatical-morphology production deficits ( n=10) and unimpaired controls ( n=10) heard complement clause sentences, subject relative clause sentences, and conjoined sentences. In Experiment 2, the same participants heard sentences with finite auxiliaries, sentences with finite main verbs, and sentences with uninflected verbs. Results showed above-chance accuracy in aphasic participants’ judgments for complementizer sentences in Experiment 1, but chance performance for verb inflections in Experiment 2. This pattern held regardless of whether the verb inflections were affixes or free-standing auxiliaries. Implications of these results for theories of agrammatic morphological impairments, including feature underspecification accounts [Wenzlaff, M., & Clahsen, H. (2004). Tense and agreement in German agrammatism. Brain and Language, 89, 57–68; Burchert, F., Swoboda-Moll, M., & De Bleser, R. (2005a). Tense and agreement dissociations in German agrammatic speakers: Underspecification vs. hierarchy. Brain and Language, 94, 188–199] and hierarchical structure-based accounts [Friedmann, N., & Grodzinsky, Y. (1997). Tense and agreement in agrammatic production: Pruning in the syntactic tree. Brain and Language, 56, 397–425; Izvorski, R., & Ullman, M. (1999). Verb inflection and the hierarchy of functional categories in agrammatic anterior aphasia. Brain and Language, 69, 288–291], are discussed.

Noun–verb naming in aphasia: a voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping study

Single case and anatomo-correlative studies of aphasic participants have indicated that lesions in temporal regions cause predominant noun impairment, whereas lesions in frontal areas affect verb processing. These studies, however, relied mostly on arbitrary cut-offs, grouping participants according to whether or not they showed a noun or a verb deficit. Here, instead, we applied a recent anatomo-correlation technique, voxel-based lesion symptom mapping (VLSM) to a group of 16 left-hemisphere stroke participants tested on noun and verb naming tasks. Behavioral and lesion data were collected continuously without establishing a priori two different groups of participants. Noun naming was associated with regions located in the left superior temporal areas, whereas verb naming involved a larger region extending from the left prefrontal to the superior temporal areas. The differences and similarities of the two networks are discussed.

The effect of typicality on online category verification of inanimate category exemplars in aphasia

Background: A previous study (Kiran & Thompson, 2003a) investigated the effect of typicality on online category verification of animate categories in patients with fluent or nonfluent aphasia and their normal controls. Results revealed a robust effect of typicality: typical examples were faster and more accurate than atypical examples of animate categories. Patients with fluent aphasia did not demonstrate the expected effects of typicality. Aims: The aim of the present study was to extend this work to examine the effect of typicality on inanimate categories such as furniture, clothing, and weapons. Methods & Procedures: Normal young, older, and aphasic individuals participated in an online category verification task where primes were superordinate category labels whereas targets were either typical or atypical examples of inanimate categories (e.g., clothing, furniture, weapons) or nonmembers belonging to animate categories. Aphasic participants were divided into two groups, semantic impairment group (SI) and no semantic impairment group (NSI), based on their performance on offline standardised semantic processing tests. The reaction time to judge whether the target belonged to the preceding category label was measured. Outcomes & Results: Results indicated that all four groups were significantly faster and more accurate on typical examples compared to atypical examples. Further, differences emerged in the processing of categories, wherein responses to clothing were more accurate than responses to furniture or weapons. In the SI group, representation of typical examples and atypical examples were impaired, as evidenced by poor accuracy rates. Conclusions: The present experiment demonstrated the typicality effect in normal individuals and in individuals with aphasia. Further, differences emerged in the processing of categories, where responses to clothing were more accurate than responses to furniture or weapons.

Quantifying aphasic people's social lives in the context of non‐aphasic peers

Background: Developing the knowledge base on the impact of aphasia on people's social lives has become increasingly important in recent times to further our understanding of the broad consequences of communication disability and thus provide appropriate services. Past research clearly indicates that relationships and social activities with family members and others undergo change with the onset of aphasia in an individual, however more evidence of a quantitative nature would be beneficial. Aims: The current research furthers our knowledge by quantifying chronically aphasic older people's regular social contacts and social activities, and places them in context by comparing them with healthy older people of similar age and education. Methods & Procedures: A total of 30 aphasic participants aged 57 to 88 years, and 71 non‐aphasic controls aged 62 to 98 years were interviewed by a speech and language therapist using self‐report measures of Social Network Analysis (Antonucci & Akiyama, 1987) and Social Activities Checklist (Cruice, 2001, in Worrall & Hickson, 2003). Demographic information was also collected. Descriptive statistics are presented and independent samples t tests were used to examine differences between the groups. Outcomes & Results: Participants with primarily mild to moderate aphasic impairment reported a considerable range of social contacts (5–51) and social activities (8–18). Many significant differences were evident between the two groups' social contacts and activities. On average, aphasic participants had nine fewer social contacts (mainly “friend” relationships) and three fewer social activities (mainly “leisure” activities) than their non‐aphasic peers. The majority of controls were satisfied with their social activities, whereas the majority of aphasic participants were not and wanted to be doing more. There were some general similarities between the groups, in terms of range of social contacts, overall pattern of social relationships, and core social activities. Conclusions: Older people with chronic aphasia had significantly fewer social contacts and social activities than their peers. People with aphasia expressed a desire to increase the social activity of their lives. Given the importance of leisure activity and relationships with friends as well as family for positive well‐being, speech and language therapists may direct their rehabilitation efforts towards two areas: (1) conversational partner programmes training friends to maintain these relationships; and (2) encouraging and supporting aphasic clients in leisure activities of their choice.

Automatic processing of wh- and NP-movement in agrammatic aphasia: Evidence from eyetracking

Individuals with agrammatic Broca’s aphasia show deficits in comprehension of non-canonical wh-movement and NP-movement sentences. Previous work using eyetracking has found that agrammatic and unimpaired listeners show very similar patterns of automatic processing for wh-movement sentences. The current study attempts to replicate this finding for sentences with wh-movement (in object relatives in the current study) and to extend it to sentences with NP-movement (passives). For wh-movement sentences, aphasic and control participants’ eye-movements differed most dramatically in late regions of the sentence and post-offset, with aphasic participants exhibiting lingering attention to a salient but grammatically impermissible competitor. The eye-movement differences between correct and incorrect trials for wh-movement sentences were similar, with incorrect trials also exhibiting competition from an impermissible interpretation late in the sentence. Furthermore, the two groups exhibited similar eye-movement patterns in response to passive NPmovement sentences, but showed little evidence of gap-filling for passives. The results suggest that aphasic and unimpaired individuals may generate similar representations during comprehension, but that aphasics are highly vulnerable to interference from alternative interpretations (Ferreira, F. (2003). The misinterpretation of noncanonical sentences. Cognitive Psychology, 47(2), 164–203).