Class_06_Oral Language Flashcards
4 Main Language Modalities
- Oral comprehension
- Oral expression
- Reading
- Writing
Vocabulary
Declarative memory system
Grammar
Non-declarative procedural memory system
Alzheimer’s & Language
Mainly cortical damage
- Declarative memory problems
- errors with irregular forms of words (i.e., vocabulary)
Parkinson’s & Language
Mainly subcortical damage involving thalamo-cortical circuits
- learning problem is procedural
- errors with rule-based use of words (i.e., grammar)
The important language areas
Left perisylvian system
Thalamo-cortical circuits
Connections between areas of the cerebral cortex and the thalamus
Thalamus
Two thalami connected
- Role in moderating the cortex
-> important in how language is processed at the neurophysiological level
Language Ready Brain
Humans, unlike other animals, are born with a brain that is already structured to allow it to learn oral language
- Thalamo-cortical circuits are responsible
Forms of Aphasia
- Expressive
- Receptive
- Anomic
- Global
Expressive Aphasia
Broca’s aphasia
- construction of language for communicating
- lack of fluency of speech
- pauses
- pronunciation difficulties
- word finding difficulties (anomia)
- verb tense errors (in languages that use tense)
- limited use of grammar in (agrammatism) in writing and speech
- good comprehension
Location & Causes of
- Broca’s area or left hemisphere posterior part of the inferior frontal above the Sylvian fissure
- Causes
- Middle cerebral artery of the left hemisphere strokes
- Transient ischemic attack -> can be recovered
Test for Agrammatism
Northwestern Anagram Test for primary progressive aphasia
- shown images
- make a sentence describing the image
- e.g., “the – man – is – kissing – the – woman”
Primary Progressive Aphasia
a form of dementia that particularly affects language use
- gradually deteriorate in the ability to use language
- syntax errors
Test of Fluency
Boston Cookie Theft Picture
- from Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE)
- shown the drawing and asked to describe it
- also test for simultanagnosia
- requires
expertise in language assessment, e.g., by aphasiologists or speech and language therapists
Test of Aphasia
Frenchay Aphasia Screening Test
- image shows a quite British scene
- does not require language experts
Receptive Aphasia
Wernicke’s aphasia
- Language production problems
- posterior part of the superior temporal gyrus on the left hemisphere
- fluent speech
- can’t finding words (anomia)
- made up words (neologisms)
- semantically-related errors in speech
2 Models of Language in the Brain
- Two language centers in the
brain
- receiving language (Wernicke’s)
- expression (Broca’s) - perisylvian language system
- includes multiple areas
Tests for Receptive Aphasia
- BDAE
- Frenchay Aphasia Screening Test
- ask them questions or to do things
- e.g. “Point to the tallest tree” - Token Test
Tests for Comprehension
Token Test
- Colored plastic tokens
- requests like ‘touch a circle’
- ‘Instead of the white square, touch the yellow circle’
Anomic Aphasia
Anomia
- Impairment of word retrieval
- The most common symptom in both receptive or expressive aphasia
- lateral surface of the left hemisphere, but particularly across the perisylvian region
Transient Lesion
The electrical brain stimulation allows the surgeon to avoid damaging areas involved with audition, vision, language use etc
Why do clinicians test for anomia?
if word finding appears to be an isolated symptom
- no or only mild comprehension or sentence production problems
- in the presence of obvious anomia
Tests for Anomia
- Confrontation naming
- shown drawings of animals or objects
- name them - Birmingham Object Recognition
Battery (BORB)
- 2 confrontation task - Boston Naming Test
- from BDAE
Global Aphasia
Most severe form of aphasia both expressive and receptive
- strokes that damage large area of
the perisylvian region
- can perform comprehension tasks using visual materials, such as Pyramids and Palm Trees Test
- good understanding
The relationship between language and thought
Language is not required for thought
- global aphasia
- no language ability
- can perform complex non-linguistic cognitive tasks
- e.g., arithmetic, logical reasoning, using theory of mind and spatial navigation
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
DEBUNKED
“Ability to think is strongly limited by the language that we know”
