Phonological Naming Research Articles

Development and Validation of Phonological Processing Assessment Tool in Kannada Language

The research evidence in orthographically transparent language Kannada indicates that phonological processing significantly influences reading acquisition, and deficits increase the risk of dyslexia. A comprehensive assessment of phonological processing that includes phonological awareness, phonological memory, and phonological naming is crucial for implementing effective intervention strategies, thereby reducing the risk of dyslexia. However, there is a notable absence of phonological processing assessment tools specifically designed and validated for children learning to read alphasyllabary Kannada. The present study addresses this gap by developing and validating a phonological processing assessment tool for children between Grade I and Grade III learning to read alphasyllabary languages such as Kannada. The study was conducted in two distinct phases. The first phase consisted of developing and piloting a phonological processing assessment tool. It included the stages of task selection, item generation, content validation, pilot testing, and reliability analysis. In the second phase, the developed tool was validated by administering it to both typically developing children and children at-risk for dyslexia from Grade I through Grade III. Subsequently, the developmental appropriateness of the tool was tested by comparing the performance of typically developing children between the grades. Additionally, diagnostic validity, including sensitivity, specificity, and area under the curve, was established by comparing the performance of typically developing and at-risk children. The study makes a substantial contribution to research on reading in Akshara orthographies, offering a valuable clinical tool for identifying children at-risk for dyslexia.

B - 84 Changes in Right Pars Triangularis Network Role and Naming Errors in Post-Stroke Aphasia.

The goal of the current study was to further clarify the role of right pars trianagularis (rPTr) in persons with aphasia (PWA) by investigating if the structural changes after stroke are associated with language deficits. We hypothesized that boundary controllability (bc), which measures the capacity of a region integrate/segregate brain regions, would be higher in rPTr for PWA than age-matched controls. We also sought to understand whether different types of naming errors corresponded to bc at rPTr. We hypothesized that bc would relate to phonological naming errors. We tested our hypothesis in 60 chronic post-stroke aphasia patients and 62 matched controls. All PWA completed the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) and the Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT). With PNT data, we calculated the overall accuracy and proportion of error type (phonological, semantic, and mixed). Consistent with our first hypothesis, we found PWA had higher bc than age-matched controls at rPTr (t(120) = -2.52, p < 0.01). A regression model yielded a statistically significant negative relationship between bc and phonological errors that could not be accounted for by lesion volume (R2 = 0.11, F(1,48) = 6.21, p < 0.05). Our results demonstrate shift in the fundamental anatomical role of rPTr suggests the region becomes more critical for integrating and segregating communication across networks of the brain. Compared to findings in the left PTr in healthy subjects, our data suggest that homotopic recruitment may involve shifts in this anatomical property. and may relate to specific aspects of language processing.

An access deficit or a deficit in the phonological representations themselves: What can we learn from naming errors?

ABSTRACT Anomic aphasia is characterized by good comprehension and non-word repetition but poor naming. Two sub-types of deficits might be hypothesized: faulty access to preserved phonological representations or preserved access to impaired representations. Phonological errors may occur only when representations are impaired or in post-lexical deficits (conduction aphasia). We analysed the incidence of phonological naming errors of 30 individuals, 25 with anomic aphasia based on poor naming but good repetition and comprehension, and five with conduction aphasia based on poor naming and poor repetition. Individuals with anomic aphasia produced very few phonological errors compared to individuals with conduction aphasia (0–19.1% versus 42–66%). However, six individuals with anomia produced more than 11% phonological errors, suggesting two patterns of deficit: either impaired lexical representations or impaired access to them. The lack of phonological errors in most individuals with anomic aphasia suggests that access to the phonological output lexicon is semantically, not phonologically driven.

Integrity of input verbal short-term memory ability predicts naming accuracy in aphasia

ABSTRACT Background Contemporary models of aphasia predominantly attribute lexical retrieval deficits to impaired access and/or maintenance of semantic, lexical, and phonological representations of words. A central hypothesis of language-emergent models of verbal short-term memory (STM) is that temporary storage and maintenance of verbal information arises from activation of linguistic representations in long-term memory. This close relationship between short-term retention and linguistic representations has prompted accounts of aphasia that include impairments to both these components. Aims We investigated associations between measures of input semantic and phonological verbal STM and corresponding output processing measures. We hypothesised that both input and output functions of verbal STM rely on a common substrate (i.e., temporary activation and maintenance of long-term linguistic representations). Methods & Procedure Twenty adults with aphasia completed a series of semantic and phonological probe spans. Results were compared with naming performance in immediate and delayed conditions. The data were analysed using correlations, principal components analysis and linear regressions. Results & Discussion Input semantic and phonological verbal STM abilities were predictive of naming accuracy. Greater input semantic and phonological STM spans were associated with fewer semantic and phonological naming errors. Latent factors identified by principal components analysis of probe span data were consistent with a two-step interactive model of word retrieval. Probe spans measuring access to semantic and initial consonant-vowel representations aligned with lexical-semantic abilities (lexical-semantic factor). Probe spans assessing access to the rhyme component of a word measured lexical-phonological abilities (lexical-phonological factor). The principal components analysis indicated that stronger lexical-semantic abilities were associated with fewer semantic and nonword errors, and stronger lexical phonological abilities were associated with fewer formal and unrelated errors. In addition, our results were consistent with models that postulate serial access to phonology, proceeding from initial to final phonemes. The span measuring access to initial consonant-vowel was associated with lexical selection, while the span measuring access to rhyme information was associated with phonological selection. Conclusion Performance on input semantic and phonological tasks predicts accuracy of picture naming performance and types of errors made by people with aphasia. These results indicate overlap in input and output semantic and phonological processing, which must be accounted for in models of lexical processing. These findings also have implications for approaches to diagnosis and treatments for lexical comprehension and production that capitalise on the overlap of input and output processing.

A Metabolic Imaging Study of Lexical and Phonological Naming Errors in Alzheimer Disease.

Patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) produce a variety of errors on confrontation naming that indicate multiple loci of impairment along the naming process in this disease. We correlated brain hypometabolism, measured with 18fluoro-deoxy-glucose positron emission tomography, with semantic and formal errors, as well as nonwords deriving from phonological errors produced in a picture-naming test by 63 patients with AD. Findings suggest that neurodegeneration leads to: (1) phonemic errors, by interfering with phonological short-term memory, or with control over retrieval of phonological or prearticulatory representations, within the left supramarginal gyrus; (2) semantic errors, by disrupting general semantic or visual-semantic representations at the level of the left posterior middle and inferior occipitotemporal cortex, respectively; (3) formal errors, by damaging the lexical-phonological output interface in the left mid-anterior segment of middle and superior temporal gyri. This topography of semantic-lexical-phonological steps of naming is in substantial agreement with dual-stream neurocognitive models of word generation.

The role of executive control in post-stroke aphasia treatment

ABSTRACT Executive control (EC) ability is increasingly emerging as an important predictor of post-stroke aphasia recovery. This study examined whether EC predicted immediate treatment gains, treatment maintenance and generalization after naming therapy in ten adults with mild to severe chronic post-stroke aphasia. Performance on multiple EC tasks allowed for the creation of composite scores for common EC, and the EC processes of shifting, inhibition and working memory (WM) updating. Participants were treated three times a week for five weeks with a phonological naming therapy; difference scores in naming accuracy of treated and untreated words (assessed pre, post, four- and eight-weeks after therapy) served as the primary outcome measures. Results from simple and multiple linear regressions indicate that individuals with better shifting and WM updating abilities demonstrated better maintenance of treated words at four-week follow-up, and those with better common EC demonstrated better maintenance of treated words at both four- and eight-week follow-ups. Better shifting ability also predicted better generalization to untreated words post-therapy. Measures of EC were not indicative of improvements on treated words immediately post-treatment, nor of generalization to untreated words at follow-up. Findings suggest that immediate treatment gains, maintenance and generalization may be supported by different underlying mechanisms.

The intractability of non-word production difficulties in jargon aphasia: Insights from therapy

The intractability of non-word production difficulties in jargon aphasia: Insights from therapy

Phonological therapy in jargon aphasia: effects on naming and neologisms

Jargon aphasia is one of the most intractable forms of aphasia with limited recommendation on amelioration of associated naming difficulties and neologisms. The few naming therapy studies that exist in jargon aphasia have utilized either semantic or phonological approaches, but the results have been equivocal. Moreover, the effect of therapy on the characteristics of neologisms is less explored. This study investigates the effectiveness of a phonological naming therapy (i.e., phonological component analysis-PCA) on picture-naming abilities and on quantitative and qualitative changes in neologisms for an individual with jargon aphasia (FF). FF showed evidence of jargon aphasia with severe naming difficulties and produced a very high proportion of neologisms. A single-subject multiple probe design across behaviours was employed to evaluate the effects of PCA therapy on the accuracy for three sets of words. In therapy, a phonological components analysis chart was used to identify five phonological components (i.e. rhymes, first sound, first sound associate, final sound and number of syllables) for each target word. Generalization effects-change in per cent accuracy and error pattern-were examined comparing pre- and post-therapy responses on the Philadelphia Naming Test, and these responses were analysed to explore the characteristics of the neologisms. The quantitative change in neologisms was measured by change in the proportion of neologisms from pre- to post-therapy and the qualitative change was indexed by the phonological overlap between target and neologism. As a consequence of PCA therapy, FF showed a significant improvement in his ability to name the treated items. His performance in maintenance and follow-up phases remained comparable with his performance during the therapy phases. Generalization to other naming tasks did not show a change in accuracy, but distinct differences in error pattern (an increase in proportion of real word responses and a decrease in proportion of neologisms) were observed. Notably, the decrease in neologisms occurred with a corresponding trend for increase in the phonological similarity between the neologisms and the targets. This study demonstrated the effectiveness of a phonological therapy for improving naming abilities and reducing the amount of neologisms in an individual with severe jargon aphasia. The positive outcome of this research is encouraging, as it provides evidence for effective therapies for jargon aphasia and also emphasizes that use of the quality and quantity of errors may provide a sensitive outcome measure to determine therapy effectiveness, in particular for client groups who are difficult to treat.

The dorsal stream contribution to phonological retrieval in object naming

Meaningful speech, as exemplified in object naming, calls on knowledge of the mappings between word meanings and phonological forms. Phonological errors in naming (e.g. GHOST named as 'goath') are commonly seen in persisting post-stroke aphasia and are thought to signal impairment in retrieval of phonological form information. We performed a voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping analysis of 1718 phonological naming errors collected from 106 individuals with diverse profiles of aphasia. Voxels in which lesion status correlated with phonological error rates localized to dorsal stream areas, in keeping with classical and contemporary brain-language models. Within the dorsal stream, the critical voxels were concentrated in premotor cortex, pre- and postcentral gyri and supramarginal gyrus with minimal extension into auditory-related posterior temporal and temporo-parietal cortices. This challenges the popular notion that error-free phonological retrieval requires guidance from sensory traces stored in posterior auditory regions and points instead to sensory-motor processes located further anterior in the dorsal stream. In a separate analysis, we compared the lesion maps for phonological and semantic errors and determined that there was no spatial overlap, demonstrating that the brain segregates phonological and semantic retrieval operations in word production.

An fMRI Investigation of Semantic and Phonological Naming Treatment in Aphasia

Difficulty naming objects is one of the most common impairments in people with aphasia post-stroke, irrespective of aphasia classification (Goodglass & Wingfield, 1997). Thus, remediation of naming impairments is often a focus of treatment in the rehabilitation of language. Such treatments typically employ phonological or semantic approaches, or a combination of the two, in order to target the major cognitive components involved in word retrieval (Nickels,2002). Although individuals can show greater benefit from one approach over the other, the relationship between an individual’s locus of breakdown in word retrieval and response to a particular treatment approach remains unclear, and knowledge of the underlying neural mechanisms which may be responsible for successful treatment is scarce. The aim of this study was to examine brain activity associated with successful phonological and semantic based treatments for word retrieval using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging fMRI).

Development and validation of a reading-related assessment battery in Malay for the purpose of dyslexia assessment

Malay is an alphabetic language with transparent orthography. A Malay reading-related assessment battery which was conceptualised based on the International Dyslexia Association definition of dyslexia was developed and validated for the purpose of dyslexia assessment. The battery consisted of ten tests: Letter Naming, Word Reading, Non-word Reading, Spelling, Passage Reading, Reading Comprehension, Listening Comprehension, Elision, Rapid Letter Naming and Digit Span. Content validity was established by expert judgment. Concurrent validity was obtained using the schools' language tests as criterion. Evidence of predictive and construct validity was obtained through regression analyses and factor analyses. Phonological awareness was the most significant predictor of word-level literacy skills in Malay, with rapid naming making independent secondary contributions. Decoding and listening comprehension made separate contributions to reading comprehension, with decoding as the more prominent predictor. Factor analysis revealed four factors: phonological decoding, phonological naming, comprehension and verbal short-term memory. In conclusion, despite differences in orthography, there are striking similarities in the theoretical constructs of reading-related tasks in Malay and in English.

Abstracts From Aphasiology Symposium of Australia, 30 November 2006 to 1 December 2006, Macquarie University, Sydney

A functional MRI-naming paradigm was employed to investigate the neural correlates of successful phonological treatment in an individual with impaired word-retrieval poststroke. Items to be treated were selected in a pretest. A subsequent pretreatment fMRI scan measured brain activity during unsuccessful naming of objects to be treated and during successful naming of a comparison set of items. A phonological naming treatment was delivered 2 to 3 times weekly over 3 weeks with posttreatment behavioural testing indicating 100% accuracy on treated items. A posttreatment fMRI scan indicated that compared to the pretreatment scan, successful naming of treated items was associated with significantly increased brain activity in a number of left and right hemisphere regions including the left inferior parietal cortex which has been associated with phonological processing in healthy individuals, suggesting a candidate neural mechanism for sound-based treatments of naming.

Naming Concepts: Evidence of Two Routes

This study examines a parallel distributed processing (PDP) model (partly based on the Wernicke-Lichtheim information processing model) that posits two routes for naming concepts, whole word and phonological. To test the two naming route hypothesis of this model, we performed confrontation naming tests that were either uncued, semantically cued, or phonologically cued in a patient with naming impairment due to Broca’s aphasia. In spoken language and in uncued naming to confrontation, word retrieval was severely impaired and marked by semantic but no phonemic paraphasic errors. With semantic cues, naming behavior was unchanged; however, with phonological cues, naming success was enhanced but frequent phonemic paraphasias were produced. These results suggest that the patient spontaneously engaged the whole word naming route, but when given phonological cues, he engaged an alternative phonological naming route that incorporated phonological sequence knowledge. We are most grateful to John Richardson for creation of the figures.

Phonological naming treatment for a Koreanspeaking patient with severe fluent aphasia

AbstractWhereas much recent research has focused on developing and examining the effects of neuropsychological model-based naming treatments for aphasic word-finding difficulties, few of these studies have involved patients with severe fluent aphasia, particularly those with a Wernicke's aphasia profile. Due to some discrepancies in the existing literature, further investigation of generalization effects associated with these model-based treatments, particularly those that are phonologically-based, is also needed. Accordingly, this study examined the effects of a phonologically-based naming treatment (applied in the context of a single-subject, A-B-A design) on the spoken naming and reading aloud abilities of T-JK, a Korean-speaking patient with Wernicke's aphasia. More specifically, the study explored if the treatment would improve his spoken naming and reading aloud of trained as well as untrained words, and additionally if it would enhance his performance of untrained language tasks. The results indica...

On the relation between mental representation and naming in a child with specific language impairment

The naming and drawing responses of a child with specific language impairment (age 5.5 years) were used to test the hypothesis that deficient storage in the mental lexicon plays a role in the naming problems associated with SLI. In confrontation- and repeated naming, the child demonstrated frequent semantic substitutions and occasional phonologic substitutions. Stochastic modelling of his repeated naming revealed storage deficits to be a source of these errors. Comparative picture naming, picture drawing allowed exploration of this storage deficit and revealed that, for some semantic naming errors, sparse semantic representations were clearly at fault but for others, sparse phonological input and output representations played a role. Phonological naming errors, in contrast, were typically associated with strong semantic representations. Clinical, theoretical, and methodological contributions of this cognitive neuropsychological case study are discussed.