Pyramids & Palm Trees

Question 1

Tests of..

Answer 1

Semantic System Access (from words & pictures)

“Assess a person’s ability to access detailed semantic representations from words & from pictures. Because it involves only picturable & therefore concrete items, the does not permit conclusions to be drawn about comprehension of abstract words & concepts.”

Question 2

Different ways to give it..

Answer 2

There are 6 different ways to give it

1) All pictures: pointing to pictures that relate (1 at the top, 2 choices at the bottom (target & distractor) - no output involved, just testing receptive semantic knowledge - client needs to know meaning of all 3 words - requires visual analysis –> picture recognition –> semantic access
2) Written Word Matching: tests reading ability in conjunction with semantic access
3) 1 picture matched between 2 written words
4) 1 written word matched between 2 written words
5) Top is blank (say the word) & client matches between 2 pictures
6) Top is blank (say the word) & client matches between 2 written words

Question 3

Patient needs to…

Answer 3

1) Recognize three items (either picture or written word)
2) Retrieve the conceptual/semantic information for the items
3) Perform the association by focusing on specific semantic properties which associates the targets with the given item & ignore other semantic information such as similarities between the target & distractor

Question 4

Normed on…

Answer 4

Normal adults, non-head injured young adults undergoing rehabilitation for traumatic injury

Question 5

Differentiates between..

Answer 5

Differentiates between problems in access to an intact semantic representation & disruption in semantic representations themselves

If do well on pictures, but not words, then you know written access is a problem, but semantic system is intact

Question 6

Score of..

Answer 6

Score of 90% or better means they do not have a significant impairment

Question 7

9 possible impairments:

Answer 7

1) Impairment in picture recognition
2) Impairment in access to semantics from picture stimuli
3) Impairment in Object-Semantic system
* 1-3 = impairment with picture stim (not word stim)
4) Impairment in transfer of information between lexical & object semantic system (cannot match writen word to choice of pictures, BUT should do better if stimuli presenting in same way, either all pictures or all verbal)
5) Impairment in lexical-semantic system (=poor at written words)
6) Impairment in auditory word recognition
7) Impairment in access to semantics from auditory input lexicon
8) Impairment in visual word recognition
9) Impairment in semantic access from visual input lexicon