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Aphasiology 2020 23;34(3):365-375. Epub 2019 Mar 23.

Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Background: The rate of decline in language in Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is highly variable and difficult to predict at baseline. The severity of diffuse white matter disease (leukoaraiosis), a marker of overall brain health, may substantially influence the rate of decline.

Aims: To test the hypothesis that leukoaraiosis is associated with a steeper decline in naming in PPA. Read More

Aphasiology 2019 1;33(7):780-802. Epub 2019 Mar 1.

University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Purpose: Impaired message-structure mapping results in deficits in both sentence production and comprehension in aphasia. Structural priming has been shown to facilitate syntactic production for persons with aphasia (PWA). However, it remains unknown if structural priming is also effective in sentence comprehension. Read More

Aphasiology 2019 16;33(11):1410-1417. Epub 2018 Nov 16.

Department of Neurology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN.

Background: Past research has demonstrated that electroencephalography (EEG) is sensitive to what we now know as Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA); however, the EEG profiles of patients with Primary Progressive Apraxia of Speech (PPAOS) and PPA, in the context of current consensus criteria, have not been studied.

Aims: The primary goal of this study was to explore the EEG profiles of patients of the nonfluent/ agrammatic variant of PPA (agPPA) and PPAOS.

Methods And Procedures: Three patients with agPPA and five patients with PPAOS (two with aphasia) completed a head MRI scan and clinical EEG recording. Read More

Aphasiology 2019 16;33(9):1137-1153. Epub 2018 Nov 16.

Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences, Graduate Center, City University of New York, NY, USA.

Background: Language mixing in bilingual speakers with aphasia has been reported in a number of research studies, but the reasons for the mixing and whether it reflects typical or atypical behaviour has been a matter of debate.

Aims: In this study we tested the hypothesis that language mixing behaviour in bilingual aphasia reflects lexical retrieval difficulty.

Methods & Procedures: We recruited a Hebrew-English bilingual participant with mild-moderate non-fluent agrammatic aphasia and assessed his languages at three timepoints. Read More

Aphasiology 2019 23;33(6):667-688. Epub 2018 Aug 23.

Department of Psychology, University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL, 35294, USA, ;

Background: Deficits in fluent language production are a hallmark of aphasia and may arise from impairments at different levels in the language system. It has been proposed that difficulty resolving lexical competition contributes to fluency deficits.

Aims: The present study tested this hypothesis in a novel way: by examining whether narrative speech production fluency is associated with difficulty resolving lexical competition in spoken word recognition as measured by sensitivity to phonological neighborhood density. Read More

Aphasiology 2019 23;33(6):689-709. Epub 2018 Jul 23.

VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System and University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA.

Background: Item response theory (IRT; Lord & Novick, 1968) is a psychometric framework that can be used to model the likelihood that an individual will respond correctly to an item. Using archival data (Mirman et al., 2010), Fergadiotis, Kellough, and Hula (2015) estimated difficulty parameters for the Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT; Roach, Schwartz, Martin, Grewal, & Brecher, 1996) using the 1-parameter logistic IRT model. Read More

Aphasiology 2019 1;33(4):382-404. Epub 2017 Dec 1.

Department of Neurology, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, 2155 RCP, Iowa City, Iowa, USA.

Background: Previous work has investigated extensively the neuroanatomical correlates of lexical retrieval for words for concrete entities. Musical entities, such as musical instruments, are often included in studies of category-specific naming deficits, but have rarely been the focus of such work.

Aims: This article reviews a program of research investigating the neuroanatomical basis for lexical retrieval of words for unique (i. Read More

Aphasiology 2019 4;33(2):125-139. Epub 2018 Sep 4.

VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, and University of Washington, Seattle.

Background: Aphasia is an acquired language disorder that makes it difficult for people to produce and comprehend language, with every person with aphasia (PWA) demonstrating difficulty accessing and selecting words (anomia). While aphasia treatments typically focus on a single aspect of language, such as word retrieval, the ultimate goal of aphasia therapy is to improve communication, which is best seen at the level of discourse.

Aims: This retrospective study investigated the effects of one effective anomia therapy, Phonomotor Treatment, on discourse production. Read More

Aphasiology 2019 16;33(2):216-233. Epub 2018 Apr 16.

Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

Background: Co-verbal gestures refer to hand or arm movements made during speaking. Spoken language and gestures have been shown to be tightly integrated in human communication.

Aims: The present study investigated whether co-verbal gesture use was associated with lexical retrieval in connected speech in unimpaired speakers and persons with aphasia (PWA). Read More

Aphasiology 2018 28;32(9):1010-1030. Epub 2018 Jun 28.

Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Phipps 446, 600 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21287 USA; Telephone (410) 614-2381;

Background: Individuals with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and their caregivers want to know what to expect so that they can plan support appropriately. The ability to predict decline in naming and semantic knowledge, and advise individuals with PPA and their caregivers regarding future planning, would be invaluable clinically.

Aims: The aims of this study were to investigate patterns of decline in naming and semantic knowledge in each of the clinical variants of PPA (logopenic variant PPA, lvPPA; nonfluent agrammatic PPA, nfaPPA; and semantic variant PPA, svPPA) and to examine the effects of other variables on rate of decline. Read More

Aphasiology 2018 2;32(8):902-921. Epub 2017 Oct 2.

Dept. of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Arnold School of Public Health, University of South Carolina.

Background: Apraxia of Speech (AOS) has been associated with deviations in consonantal voice-onset-time (VOT), but studies of vowel acoustics have yielded conflicting results. However, a speech motor planning disorder that is not bound by phonological categories is expected to affect vowel as well as consonant articulations.

Aims: We measured consonant VOTs and vowel formants produced by a large sample of stroke survivors, and assessed to what extent these variables and their dispersion are predictive of AOS presence and severity, based on a scale that uses clinical observations to rate gradient presence of AOS, aphasia, and dysarthria. Read More

Aphasiology 2018 18;32(7):839-854. Epub 2017 Dec 18.

Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore MD 21287, USA.

Background: Functional neuroimaging techniques can provide a unique window into the neural basis of language recovery after a stroke. The functional neuroimaging literature on post-stroke language recovery is complex; multiple factors such as the time post-stroke, degree of initial impairment, nature of the task, and lesion location and size, influence recovery patterns. Some of these factors may not be applicable across different stroke participants, and therefore, influence recovery trajectories in vastly different manners across patients. Read More

Aphasiology 2018 14;32(Suppl 1):45-46. Epub 2018 Aug 14.

Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, Chicago, IL.

Aphasiology 2018 14;32(1 Suppl):115-116. Epub 2018 Aug 14.

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders St Johns University.

Aphasiology 2018 14;32(Suppl 1):93-95. Epub 2018 Aug 14.

Dept Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.

Aphasiology 2018 6;32(4):475-478. Epub 2017 Nov 6.

University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Communication Disorders.

Aphasiology 2017;31(11):1266-1281. Epub 2017 Jan 17.

Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.

Background: Transient aphasias are common in the first few days after resective surgery to the language-dominant hemisphere. The specific speech and language deficits that occur are related to the location of the surgical site, and may include impairments in fluency, lexical access, repetition, and comprehension. The impact of these transient aphasias on connected speech production has not previously been investigated. Read More

Aphasiology 2017;31(8):951-980. Epub 2016 Sep 2.

Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.

Background: Aphasia following infarction of Wernicke's area typically resolves to some extent over time. The nature of this recovery process and its time course have not been characterized in detail, especially in the acute/subacute period.

Aims: The goal of this study was to document recovery after infarction of Wernicke's area in detail in the first 3 months after stroke. Read More

Aphasiology 2017;31(10):1205-1225. Epub 2017 Jan 3.

SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders, School of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, San Diego, CA, USA.

Background: Individuals with agrammatic Broca's aphasia (IWBA) exhibit a delay in lexical activation in S-V-O word order sentences and delayed lexical reactivation in sentences that contain syntactic dependencies. This pattern is in contrast to neurologically unimpaired individuals who immediately evince lexical reactivation at the gap in sentences that contain syntactic dependencies. However, in the case of sentences that contain unaccusative verbs, neurologically unimpaired individuals also exhibit a delay in lexical reactivation. Read More

Aphasiology 2017;31(2):241-260. Epub 2016 Jul 21.

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, MGH Institute of Health Professions, Boston, MA, USA.

Background: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative aphasic syndrome with three distinct clinical variants: non-fluent (nfvPPA), logopenic (lvPPA), and semantic (svPPA). Speech (non-) fluency is a key diagnostic marker used to aid identification of the clinical variants, and researchers have been actively developing diagnostic tools to assess speech fluency. Current approaches reveal coarse differences in fluency between subgroups, but often fail to clearly differentiate nfvPPA from the variably fluent lvPPA. Read More

Aphasiology 2017;31(2):152-165. Epub 2016 May 27.

Carnegie Mellon University.

Background: This work focuses on the twenty-six individuals who provided data to AphasiaBank on at least two occasions, with initial testing between 6 months and 5.8 years post-onset of aphasia. The data are archival in nature and were collected from the extensive database of aphasic discourse in AphasiaBank. Read More

Aphasiology 2017;31(5):542-562. Epub 2016 Jul 30.

Department of Communication Sciences, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Background: Deep dysphasia is a relatively rare subcategory of aphasia, characterised by word repetition impairment and a profound auditory-verbal short-term memory (STM) limitation. Repetition of words is better than nonwords (lexicality effect) and better for high-image than low-image words (imageability effect). Another related language impairment profile is phonological dysphasia, which includes all of the characteristics of deep dysphasia except for the occurrence of semantic errors in single word repetition. Read More

Aphasiology 2017;31(1):25-48. Epub 2016 Feb 19.

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University.

Background: Implicit learning is a process of learning that occurs outside of conscious awareness and may be involved in implicit, exposure-based language training. However, research shows that implicit learning abilities are variable among individuals with aphasia, and it remains unknown whether individuals who show basic implicit learning abilities also benefit from implicit language training.

Aims: The aims of this series of experiments were to test implicit learning in individuals with agrammatic aphasia, examine the effects of a novel implicit language treatment, and investigate whether individuals with aphasia who show implicit learning ability also benefit from implicit treatment focused on passive sentence comprehension. Read More

Aphasiology 2016 16;30(9):983-1011. Epub 2016 Oct 16.

Science and Research, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2200 Research Blvd., Rockville, MD 20850-3289, USA, (301) 897-0133,

Background: Although aphasia rehabilitation has been shown to be efficacious, many questions remain regarding how best to deliver treatment to maximize functional gains for persons with aphasia. Treatment delivery variables, such as intensity and dosage, are likely to influence both behavioral and structural changes during anomia treatment. While numerous protocols have concluded that treatment intensity positively impacts functional outcomes, few studies to date have examined the role that dose plays in patient outcomes for anomia treatment. Read More

Aphasiology 2017 9;31(8):861-878. Epub 2016 Sep 9.

University of Washington, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Box 356490, Seattle, WA 98195, 206-543-3345.

Background: The term 'communicative participation' refers to participation in the communication aspects of life roles at home, at work, and in social and leisure situations. Participation in life roles is a key element in biopsychosocial frameworks of health such as the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF), and the Aphasia Framework for Outcomes Measurement (AFROM). The Communicative Participation Item Bank (CPIB) was developed as a patient-reported measure of communicative participation for adults. Read More

Aphasiology 2017 20;31(4):447-464. Epub 2017 Jan 20.

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.

Background: This study investigated whether individuals with aphasia (IWA) retain verb biases in expressive language. Verb biases refer to the likelihood that a given verb will occur in different sentence structures. We focused on the likelihood of verbs occurring in transitive and intransitive structures. Read More

Aphasiology 2017 2;31(9):1059-1077. Epub 2017 Mar 2.

Center for Aphasia Research and Rehabilitation, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC.

Background: Structural imaging has not been used previously to predict the effect of treatment in primary progressive aphasia (PPA).

Aims: This study examined relationships between baseline brain volume and the effects of phonological and orthographic treatments for anomia in PPA. It was predicted that lower baseline volume would be associated with lower post-treatment naming accuracy for treated items and smaller generalization effects. Read More

Aphasiology 2017;31(1):67-81. Epub 2016 Mar 9.

SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders, San Diego, CA, USA; School of Speech Language and Hearing Sciences, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA.

Background: It is well accepted that individuals with agrammatic Broca's aphasia have difficulty comprehending some sentences with filler-gap dependencies. While investigations of these difficulties have been conducted with several different sentence types (e.g. Read More

Aphasiology 2016;30(7):815-840. Epub 2015 Nov 16.

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA; Department of Neurology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA; Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA.

Background: English-speaking patients with Broca's aphasia and agrammatism evince difficulty with complex grammatical structures, including verbs and sentences. A few studies have found similar patterns among Chinese-speaking patients with broca's aphasia, despite structural differences between these two languages. However, no studies have explicitly examined verb properties, including the number and optionality of arguments (participant roles) selected by the verb, and only a few studies have examined sentence deficits among Chinese patients. Read More

Aphasiology 2016;30(9):1012-1025. Epub 2015 Aug 26.

Portland State University.

Background: Researchers have demonstrated that people with aphasia (PWA) have preserved semantic knowledge (Dell et al., 1997; Jefferies & Lambon Ralph, 2006). However, Antonucci (2014) demonstrated that some PWA have impaired access to certain types of knowledge more than others. Read More

Aphasiology 2016 Jul 29;30(7):862-876. Epub 2016 Apr 29.

Oliver Zangwill Centre , Cambridgeshire , United Kingdom.

We developed a reporting guideline to provide authors with guidance about what should be reported when writing a paper for publication in a scientific journal using a particular type of research design: the single-case experimental design. This report describes the methods used to develop the Single-Case Reporting guideline In BEhavioural interventions (SCRIBE) 2016. As a result of 2 online surveys and a 2-day meeting of experts, the SCRIBE 2016 checklist was developed, which is a set of 26 items that authors need to address when writing about single-case research. Read More

Aphasiology 2016 Apr 4;30(4):483-507. Epub 2015 Sep 4.

Center for Aphasia Research and Rehabilitation, Georgetown University Medical Center.

Background: The efficacy of telerehabilitation-based treatment for anomia has been demonstrated in post-stroke aphasia, but the efficacy of this method of anomia treatment delivery has not been established within the context of degenerative illness.

Aims: The current study evaluated the feasibility and efficacy of a telerehabilitation-based approach to anomia treatment within the three subtypes of primary progressive aphasia (PPA).

Methods & Procedures: Each of the three telerehabilitation participants represented a distinct subtype of PPA. Read More

Aphasiology 2016;30(6):719-749. Epub 2015 Sep 12.

Aphasia Research Laboratory, Speech, Language & Hearing Sciences, Boston University, 635 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA, USA 02215, 617-358-5478.

Background: Semantic and phonological processing deficits are often present in aphasia. The degree of interdependence between the deficits has been widely studied with variable findings. Semantic variables such as category and typicality have been found to influence semantic processing in healthy individuals and persons with aphasia but their influence on phonological processing is unknown. Read More

Aphasiology 2016 May 19;30(5):542-565. Epub 2015 Mar 19.

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Background: Intensity of therapy is a critical factor influencing outcomes in aphasia. However, there are many barriers to increasing treatment intensity for those with acute/subacute aphasia including the demands of the inpatient medical facilities and the endurance of the participants. Nevertheless, with some modifications to its original procedures, evidence suggests that Constraint Induced Language Therapy (CILT) may yield positive outcomes when given in the early stages of recovery. Read More

Aphasiology 2016;30(1):74-95. Epub 2015 Jan 14.

Department of Speech Pathology & Audiology, West Virginia University.

Background: Although many speech errors can be generated at either a linguistic or motoric level of production, phonetically well-formed sound-level serial-order errors are generally assumed to result from disruption of phonologic encoding (PE) processes. An influential model of PE (Dell, 1986; Dell, Burger & Svec, 1997) predicts that speaking rate should affect the relative proportion of these serial-order sound errors (anticipations, perseverations, exchanges). These predictions have been extended to, and have special relevance for persons with aphasia (PWA) because of the increased frequency with which speech errors occur and because their localization within the functional linguistic architecture may help in diagnosis and treatment. Read More

Aphasiology 2015 Nov 6;29(11):1289-1311. Epub 2015 Jan 6.

Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, MA.

Background: While it is well understood that individuals with aphasia have difficulty with discourse comprehension, very few studies have examined the nature of discourse comprehension deficits in aphasia and the potential for improvement in discourse comprehension after rehabilitation. To address the first goal, we previously developed the Test of Syntactic Effects on Discourse Comprehension (TSEDC), which provides a measure of the extent to which a participant's sentence comprehension ability aids in comprehending passages (Levy et al., 2012). Read More

Aphasiology 2015;29(10):1164-1188

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA ; Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA ; Department of Neurology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.

Background: Phonological priming has been shown to facilitate naming in individuals with aphasia as well as healthy speakers, resulting in faster naming latencies. However, the mechanisms of phonological facilitation (PF) in aphasia remain unclear.

Aims: Within discrete vs. Read More

Aphasiology 2015;29(9):1062-1081

Center for Aphasia Research and Rehabilitation, Georgetown University Medical Center.

Background: Treatment studies for anomia in PPA have rarely compared multiple treatments in the same individual, and few anomia treatment studies have included participants with the logopenic variant of PPA (lvPPA).

Aims: The goals of this study were to evaluate two types of treatment for anomia in a bilingual participant (ND) with lvPPA, and to examine possible cross-language transfer of treatment effects.

Methods & Procedures: ND is a Norwegian-English bilingual woman with lvPPA who began this study at the age of 69. Read More

Aphasiology 2015 Feb;29(2):129-150

Aphasia and Neurolinguistics Research Laboratory, Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL ; Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

Background: Individuals with acquired phonological dyslexia experience difficulty associating written letters with corresponding sounds, especially in pseudowords. Previous studies have shown that reading can be improved in these individuals by training letter-sound correspondence, practicing phonological skills, or using combined approaches. However, generalization to untrained items is typically limited. Read More

Aphasiology 2015 Jul 3;29(7):826-844. Epub 2015 Jan 3.

School of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Curtin University , Perth , Australia.

: Conveying instructions is an everyday use of language, and gestures are likely to be a key feature of this. Although co-speech iconic gestures are tightly integrated with language, and people with aphasia (PWA) produce procedural discourses impaired at a linguistic level, no previous studies have investigated how PWA use co-speech iconic gestures in these contexts. : This study investigated how PWA communicated meaning using gesture and language in procedural discourses, compared with neurologically healthy people (NHP). Read More

Aphasiology 2014 Sep;28(8-9):1018-1037

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University Francis Searle Building, 2240 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208.

Background: Grammatical impairments are commonly observed in the agrammatic subtype of primary progressive aphasia (PPA-G), whereas grammatical processing is relatively preserved in logopenic (PPA-L) and semantic (PPA-S) subtypes.

Aims: We review research on grammatical deficits in PPA and associated neural mechanisms, with discussion focused on production and comprehension of four aspects of morphosyntactic structure: grammatical morphology, functional categories, verbs and verb argument structure, and complex syntactic structures. We also address assessment of grammatical deficits in PPA, with emphasis on behavioral tests of grammatical processing. Read More

Aphasiology 2015 Mar;29(3):355-377

Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London , London , UK.

: A recent review of interaction (or conversation)-focused therapy highlighted the potential of programmes targeting the person with aphasia (PWA) directly. However, it noted the key limitations of current work in this field to be a reliance on single case analyses and qualitative evidence of change, a situation that is not unusual when a complex behavioural intervention is in the early stages of development and evaluation. : This article aims to evaluate an intervention that targeted a PWA and their conversation partner (CP), a dyad, as equals in a novel conversation therapy for agrammatic aphasia, using both quantitative and qualitative evidence of change. Read More

Aphasiology 2014 Sep;28(8-9):922-940

Department of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Background: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a progressive disorder of language that is increasingly recognised as an important presentation of a specific spectrum of neurodegenerative conditions.

Aims: In an era of etiologically specific treatments for neurodegenerative conditions, it is crucial to establish the histopathologic basis for PPA. In this review, I discuss biomarkers for identifying the pathology underlying PPA. Read More

Aphasiology 2015 28;29(6):724-743. Epub 2014 Nov 28.

Cognition and Brain Plasticity Group, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute - IDIBELL, Barcelona, Spain.

Background: Speech segmentation is one of the initial and mandatory phases of language learning. Although some people with aphasia have shown a preserved ability to learn novel words, their speech segmentation abilities have not been explored.

Aims: We examined the ability of individuals with chronic aphasia to segment words from running speech via statistical learning. Read More

Aphasiology 2015 24;29(5):570-574. Epub 2014 Dec 24.

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Aphasiology 2015 Jan;29(1):81-100

Division of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR.

Background: Differences in processing nouns and verbs have been investigated intensely in psycholinguistics and neuropsychology in past decades. However, the majority of studies examining retrieval of these word classes have involved tasks of single word stimuli or responses. While the results have provided rich information for addressing issues about grammatical class distinctions, it is unclear whether they have adequate ecological validity for understanding lexical retrieval in connected speech which characterizes daily verbal communication. Read More

Aphasiology 2014 Aug;28(8-9):948-963

Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore MD 21287, USA ; Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore MD 21287, USA ; Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.

Background: Three variants of primary progressive aphasia (PPA), distinguished by language performance and supportive patterns of atrophy on imaging, have different clinical courses and the prognoses for specific functions. For example, semantic variant PPA alone is distinguished by impaired word comprehension. However, sometimes individuals with high education show normal performance on word comprehension tests early on, making classification difficult. Read More

Aphasiology 2014 Jan;28(8-9):993-1003

Frontotemporal Dementia Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA ; Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA ; Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA ; Department of Massachusetts Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA ; Department of Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.

Background: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a devastating neurodegenerative syndrome involving the gradual development of aphasia, slowly impairing the patient's ability to communicate. Pharmaceutical treatments do not currently exist and intervention often focuses on speech-language behavioral therapies, although further investigation is warranted to determine how best to harness functional benefits. Efforts to develop pharmaceutical and behavioral treatments have been hindered by a lack of standardized methods to monitor disease progression and treatment efficacy. Read More

Aphasiology 2014 Aug;28(8-9):1004-1017

Dept. of Neurology, Mayo Clinic, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN, U.S.A.

Background: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and conditions that overlap with it can be accompanied by motor speech disorders. Recognition and understanding of motor speech disorders can contribute to a fuller clinical understanding of PPA and its management as well as its localization and underlying pathology.

Aims: To review the types of motor speech disorders that may occur with PPA, its primary variants, and its overlap syndromes (progressive supranuclear palsy syndrome, corticobasal syndrome, motor neuron disease), as well as with primary progressive apraxia of speech. Read More

Aphasiology 2014 Nov;28(11):1385-1392

Division of Linguistics, University of Athens , Athens , Greece on behalf of the Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists.