Pragmatic Disorders Research Articles

Application of a Combined Approach in Pragmatic Rehabilitation in a Case of Autism Spectrum Disorder

This study focuses on a 12-year-old girl diagnosed with a pragmatic disorder caused by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Following an initial evaluation, a pragmatic rehabilitation program was implemented using a combined approach in 15 therapeutic sessions over a 4-month period. The program consisted of structured formats organized into modules to train the verbal, paralinguistic, and nonverbal aspects of communication. The results of the re-evaluation demonstrated the program’s effectiveness, with improvements in communicative intention, proxemic skills, prosodic variations, physical contact with the interlocutor, and verbal fluency in oral messages. Consequently, the implementation of the intervention program significantly enhanced the patients’ pragmatic communication skills in therapeutic, familial, and social contexts.

Pragmatic impairment and multimodal compensation in older adults with dementia

Compensation emerges when older adults encounter pragmatic impairment. Though studies are plentiful in pragmatic impairments of patients with aphasia or neurodegenerative diseases, discussions about compensation, especially older adult’s multimodal performance, need further generalization and interpretation. To fill this gap, this paper attempts to sketch the performance of multimodal compensation of Chinese older adults in pragmatic disorders and its corresponding pragmatic functions. Based on different viewing perspectives, this paper distinguishes three types of compensatory performances, i.e. compensation from inter- and intra- personal perspectives, compensation across language levels, and compensation across semiotic systems and modalities, by giving examples from Multimodal Corpus of Gerontic Discourse constructed by the authors’ team and explains how these compensatory performances help to complete communication. Compensatory performances of older adults classified and analyzed in this study can be explained by brain adaptation and compensation hypothesis. Compensatory performances are on account of interconnection among multiple sensory organs and their neural networks. The exploration of performance and mechanism of multimodal compensation of Chinese older adults not only verifies and expands brain adaptation and compensation theories, but also may prompt the communicative efficiency of older adults when encountering pragmatic impairments.

Expressive Language Used by Autistic Main Character in Please Stand By (2017) Movie

People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty using language in communication. The language of autism sufferers in expressive language disorders includes phonological disorders, syntactic disorders, semantic disorders, and pragmatic disorders. The purpose of this study was to determine the types of expressive language disorders used by the main character in the movie Please Stand By (2017). The method of this research was descriptive qualitative because this research describes the phenomenon of expressive language disorder in the Please Stand By (2017) movie. The source of data used in this research is the script from the movie. Once collected, the data are categorized and analyzed based on their respective categories. In this research, the researcher found that Wendy exhibited several symptoms of a type of expressive language disorder, namely semantic disorders and pragmatic disorders. This disorder can be seen from the symptoms shown by the main character through her speech.

Pragmatic disorder of monolingual and bilingual children with autism

Pragmatic disorder of monolingual and bilingual children with autism

Pragmatic Language Disorders Resulting from Semantic Degradation in Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease

Objective: The aim of this study is to create an inventory of pragmatic language disorders specific to Alzheimer’s disease, to illustrate them by case examples, to determine the severity of disorders according to the stages of Alzheimer’s, and to specify the impact of patients’ demographic characteristics on the pragmatic disorders experienced by them. Method: The study adopted a descriptive research design. The sample was selected using the stratified sampling method. Interviews were conducted with the patients using the free association technique. The feedbacks from the participants were collected as audio recordings and transcribed using the SALT program. The findings were analysed and compared with the control group data, and the conclusion was drawn from the results obtained. Results: In the course of study 19 types of pragmatic language disorders of AD patients were identified. The differences between the pragmatic disorders detected at various stages of the disease were illustrated in detail using case examples, and the effect of the demographic variables on the disorders was determined. Conclusion: As a result of the research, pragmatic language disorders resulting from semantic degradation experienced by AD patients were identified. It was found out that the early stage of AD is characterised by mild pragmatic disorders, which tend to get more distinct at the middle stage and even more severe at the late stage. In addition, it was determined that the demographic characteristics of patients have an impact on the severity of pragmatic language disorders.

Capacity of the CCC-2 to Discriminate ASD from Other Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

The Children’s Communication Checklist (CCC-2) has demonstrated its usefulness as an instrument to assess discrepancies between the use of structural dimensions of language and the pragmatic and sociointeractive uses of language. The aims of the present paper are: (1) to test the capacity of the Galician adaptation of the CCC-2 to discriminate the linguistic profiles of children with different disorders and (2) to test whether the capacity of the CCC-2 to discriminate the linguistic abilities of children with different disorders is the same at different ages: earlier development and later development. The sample is of 117 children previously diagnosed with different disorders: autism spectrum disorder (ASD), developmental language disorder (DLD), attention deficit with hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Down syndrome children (DS) and typically developing children (TD). The children were divided into two different age groups: from 4 to 6 and from 7 to 16 years of age. The results indicate that the Galician CCC-2 (1) accurately identified children with and without communicative impairments, (2) distinguished between profiles with a predominance of pragmatic (ASD and ADHD) and structural disorders (DS and DLD) and (3) distinguished between different profiles of pragmatic impairment. The CCC-2 equally identified these profiles at both earlier and later ages. The Galician CCC-2 seems to be a useful instrument for differentiating among different clinical groups and for assessing pragmatic disorders from an early age, which can be valuable for planning early intervention.

Pragmatic Communication Disorder

One patient has Pragmatic Communication Disorder. He had delayed communication up to age 6. He was a loner in Junio high school. He is stubborn but when you get him talking, he does not stop. He is full of interesting information. He has poor social communication skills.

Differential impairments in irony comprehension in brain-damaged individuals: Insight from contextual processing, theory of mind, and executive functions.

The comprehension of irony can be affected after brain injuries. The cognitive mechanisms accounting for such disorders remain yet unclear. The heterogeneity of cognitive profiles of brain-damaged individuals and the use of independent tests to measure the links between these mechanisms and the comprehension of irony might contribute to this lack of clarity. The present study aimed to further explore the underlying mechanisms of irony-understanding disorders (i.e., context processing, executive functions [EF], and theory of mind [ToM]) in patients with brain lesions. We used a paradigm manipulating these mechanisms within an irony task to identify different patterns of pragmatic performance associated with cognitive profiles. We administered this task and standard neuropsychological tests assessing EF and ToM to 30 participants with acquired brain injury (ABI) and 30 healthy control (HC) participants. A cluster analysis revealed that two thirds of the participants with ABI (3 subgroups out of 4) presented atypical pragmatic and neuropsychological patterns. The most severe disturbances in understanding irony, characterized by insensitivity to the context, were associated with a joint impairment of ToM and EF in 1 subgroup. In the 2 other context-sensitive subgroups, an isolated deficit in EF co-occurred with difficulties dealing with literal or ironic statements when the EF demand of the irony task was increased. However, the effect of this EF demand could be negated by the presence of markers helping the comprehension of irony. These results have important clinical implications for the evaluation and therapy of pragmatic disorders in individuals with ABI. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Communication after traumatic brain injury: the effectiveness of a Pragmatics rehabilitation programme

Objective: The present study intends to assess the effects of a Pragmatics rehabilitation programme on communication skills. Method: We have recruited 12 participants who had suffered from severe or moderate Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), with more than two years post-onset, who were randomly divided into two groups, an Experimental Group (EG) and a Control Group (CG). The EG followed a specific programme for the rehabilitation of Pragmatic Communication and the CG followed a programme of communication stimulation through group conversation. Each programme consisted of 24 one-hour, thirty-minute sessions, twice a week, for 12 weeks. In order to verify the efficacy of the programme, both groups were assessed before and after using the two equivalent forms of the same scale, Forms A and B, of The Assessment Battery of Communication (ABaCo). Results: Improvements were observed in both groups, although much more evident in the EG. Both groups obtained better results regarding Extralinguistic Comprehension and Production (questions, assertions, commands, requests and ironies by using gesticulation). In the EG there was also an improvement in Paralinguistic Production (facial expressions and intonation). Conclusion: The results demonstrate the effectiveness and relevance of establishing rehabilitation programmes for communicative pragmatic disorders after TBI. The study shows how a simple conversation intervention programme can be beneficial when more elaborated therapies cannot be executed.

The language of children and young people with 22q11 deletion syndrome

The 22q11 deletion syndrome (S22q11) is one of the most prevalent genetic disorders, resulting in multiple systemic and neuropsychological features. To describe the language profile in a sample of Spanish subjects with S22q11. A sample of 30 Spanish participants with S22q11 aged between 5 years and 21 years and 11 months (mean: 12.14 ± 4.20 years) was evaluated using standardized tests and a questionnaire administered to parents. Almost half of the subjects obtained better results in expressive language than in comprehensive language and the majority obtained a higher score in language content than in language memory. The results suggest that people with S22q11 present language difficulties that improve with age to a certain level and subsequently stabilize. A specific profile is observed that suggests that pragmatic difficulties are a consequence of this language profile and not only of social difficulties already described in this pathology. In the sample of the present study, children and young people with S22q11 present specific language and pragmatic disorders. More than half of the study participants did not obtain significant differences between the level of expressive and receptive language. Most presented semantic fluency difficulties. The type and degree of impairment in pragmatic skills suggest that the basic problem may be related to their language difficulties.

Corrigendum: Pragmatic Language Disorder in Parkinson's Disease and the Potential Effect of Cognitive Reserve

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01220.].

A Descriptive Study of Semantic-Pragmatic Language Disorder in Two Adults

This paper studies the concept of semantic and pragmatic disorders in adults, using two adults as case study. We shall work within the theoretical framework of semantics, pragmatics and theories on semantic and pragmatic disorders. Our main finding is that this impairment does exist in adults who may exhibit very little obvious disability in their expressive language behaviour but manifest poor conversational and dialogical skills. They have a high tendency of misinterpreting utterances and are very easily misunderstood themselves. Keywords: Dialogical, disorder, pragmatic, semantic. DOI : 10.7176/JLLL/60-03 Publication date :September 30 th 2019

Pragmatic abilities in children with ASD, ADHD, Down syndrome and typical development through the Galician version of the CCC-2

BackgroundPragmatics is an area of language that may be impaired in a wide variety of disorders. However, there is a dearth of instruments for the assessment of pragmatic abilities. The Children's Communication Checklist (CCC-2) is the most widespread test, although more adaptations of this instrument to other languages are necessary. AimsIn this paper we (1) develop a pilot study to adapt the CCC-2 to the Galician language, (2) check the capacity of this version to assess communicative difficulties in Galician speakers from 4 to 16 years of age, and (3) we also check its capacity to discriminate the linguistic profiles of different disorders. MethodThe reference profile of the Galician CCC-2 was established with a sample of 48 schoolchildren. Comparisons of the scores obtained by children with ASD (n=11), ADHD (n=10), Down Syndrome (DS) (n=9) and Typical Development (n=10) were carried out. ResultsThe Galician CCC-2 (1) accurately identified children with and without communicative impairments, (2) distinguished between profiles with predominance of pragmatic (ASD and ADHD) and structural disorders (DS), and (3) distinguished between different profiles with predominance of pragmatic impairment. ConclusionsThe Galician CCC-2 seems to be a useful instrument to assess pragmatic disorders and to differentiate among different clinical groups.

Intervención en trastornos pragmáticos: consideraciones metodológicas

Based on the needs of a clinical perspective, a review of the main interpretative models of pragmatic disorders in children and their relationship with action proposals is carried out. A methodological analysis of these proposals is suggested, which provides an individualized intervention to deal with the wide range of symptoms and pathological processes and the paucity of sufficient empirical evidence.

Pragmatics Impairment and complexity of Linguistic Domain: Psycho-linguistic Analysis for pragmatic Disorders

This research under name of (Pragmatics Impairment and complexity of Linguistic Domain: Psycho-linguistic Analysis for pragmatic Disorders) In one hand Pragmatics is the ability to appropriately interact with another by Using language in the social situation and Connecting with others, on the other hand pragmatics disorders are Inability to take turns during conversation, Inability to engage in the give and take of a conversation. this research analysis the main ideas about this type of disorders therefore it discusses the main causes that affect language comprehension and fluency, for this matter we used clinical linguistics, neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics to show how people who had this disorders struggling and how we can treat them especially how Kurdish language speakers will be affect in this level of language.

Concurrent language disorders in children with idiopathic epilepsy

ObjectivesThe relationship between language and epilepsy remains complex. Language disorder and epilepsy can be concomitant but unrelated phenomena. They can also be separate consequences of the same underlying brain pathology. Epilepsy can also be the direct cause of the language disorder. The aim of this study was to study concurrent language disorders in children with idiopathic epilepsy.Study designThis cross-sectional study was conducted on 50 children attending the Neurology Clinic at Alexandria University Children Hospital at El-Shatby with the diagnosis of idiopathic epilepsy. Their ages ranged from 3 to 6 years, and 29 were male and 21 were female. These children were divided into two groups: group 1 included 25 cases with idiopathic generalized epilepsy, and group 2 included 25 cases with idiopathic focal epilepsy. All cases were subjected to thorough history taking, assessment of epilepsy severity using the National Hospital Seizure Severity Scale, and comprehensive neurological examination. They were also subjected to digital electroencephalographic recording. The studied cases had undergone psychometric assessment using the Stanford–Binet Test and language assessment using the Comprehensive Arabic Language Test.The study was approved by the Ethics Committee at the Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University. Consent was taken from all cases to participate in the study.ResultsThirty-two (64%) children with idiopathic epilepsy presented with developmental language disorders. As regards the observed disorders, 30 (93.7%) cases presented with phonological disorder, 29 (90.6%) presented with semantic disorders, 29 (90.6%) presented with syntax disorders, 20 (62.5%) presented with morphological disorders, and 28 (87.5%) cases presented with pragmatic disorders. Male sex, age (54.48±9 months), and uncontrolled epilepsy demonstrated to have a higher risk for developmental language disorders.ConclusionMale sex, age, and uncontrolled epilepsy are risk factors.

Tulburarea de comunicare socială pragmatică – (TCSP). Studiu ilustrând percepția specialiștilor în terapia limbajului din România

Tulburarea de comunicare socială pragmatică – (TCSP). Studiu ilustrând percepția specialiștilor în terapia limbajului din România

Linguistic research in the empirical paradigm as outlined by Mario Bunge.

In view of the critique of the methodology of the dominant interdisciplinary research involving language studies as the main component, in particular clinical linguistics, Cummings (Pragmatic disorders. Perspectives in pragmatics, philosophy and psychology, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht, 2014) proposes that “It is perhaps appropriate at this point to move the debate onto non-empirical grounds.” In Cummings (2014: 113) she starts such a debate on the grounds of the philosophy of language and pragmatics. In this article, I propose to expand that debate by including the input of the philosophy of science. I start the discussion by presenting the way one may carry out language research in the paradigm of empirical sciences from the perspective outlined in Bunge (Scientific research. Strategy and philosophy. Berlin, Springer, 1967; Method, model and matter (synthese library). D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, 1973; Emergence and convergence: qualitative novelty and the unity of knowledge. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2003) and constrained by Altmann’s (Towards a theory of language. Glottometrica 1:1–25, 1978) assumption about self-originating and self-regulatory nature of language.

Assessment of cognitive profile (WISC-IV), autistic symptomatology and pragmatic disorders in high intellectual potential compared with autism spectrum disorder

IntroductionAn overlap between autism spectrum disorder (ASD), in particular Asperger Syndrome (AS), and high intellectual potential (HIP–Total IQ > 2 SD) is often discussed.ObjectivesExplore differences between homogeneous and heterogeneous Wisc-profiles among HIP children, and between HIP and ASD children, on cognitive and clinical assessments.MethodsForty-nine participants (mean age 11.2 years) were divided in 4 groups: High Functioning Autism (HFA), AS, Homogenous HIP and Heterogeneous HIP. Data of WISC-IV and questionnaires – Autism Quotient (AQ), Empathy Quotient (EQ), Systemizing Quotient (SQ), Children's Communication Checklist (CCC) – were compared.(Preliminary) ResultsOn the WISC-IV, the Z scores curves follow similar trajectories but highlight quantitative differences between AS and heterogeneous HIP: verbal comprehension is the highest index (+1,6 SD in AS; +3,1 SD in heterogeneous HIP) followed by perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed indexes (–1,2 SD in AS; +0,5 SD in heterogeneous HIP), respectively. The questionnaires show that scores of Homogenous HIP children are all in the average. Heterogeneous HIP children score 2,1 SD above average on the AQ (+1,6 SD on “Social Skills” and +1,3 SD on “Local Detail” subscales), whereas ASD children score 4 SD above average on the AQ. In addition, heterogeneous HIP children show pragmatic difficulties (–2,4 SD on the CCC, with a peak on “Area of Interest” subscale), also present in ASD children (–4 SD).ConclusionsAS and heterogeneous HIP children show similar cognitive profiles on the WISC-IV. Furthermore, heterogeneous HIP children exhibit high scores on the AQ and have pragmatic difficulties.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Assessment of pragmatic impairment in right hemisphere damage

Abstract Aim of the present study is to provide a multifocal assessment of pragmatic abilities in patients with right hemisphere damage (RHD). Pragmatics refers to the ability to use language and non-verbal expressive means (e.g., gestures) to convey meaning in a given context, and it also involves the appropriate use of connotative elements such as rhythm and prosody. Patients with RHD frequently report a wide range of pragmatic disorders: despite the heterogeneity of their clinical profiles, these difficulties can seriously undermine their ability to effectively communicate in everyday situations. We analysed the performance of 17 patients with RHD and 17 healthy controls using the Assessment Battery for Communication, a clinical tool for assessing a wide range of pragmatic phenomena - both in comprehension and production - and considering different expressive means. The results suggest patients have difficulties both in comprehending and producing pragmatic phenomena of differing complexity; in particular, patients seem to be significantly impaired when dealing with non-verbal modality, i.e., gestures and facial expressions. Moreover a hierarchical cluster analysis revealed the presence of a number of clusters corresponding to different outcomes of pragmatic performance, in line with the heterogeneity of communicative profiles following RHD frequently reported in the literature.