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Biomedical subjects

H K Ulatowska

Publications and source records attributed to H K Ulatowska.

16 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1989

Discourse in aphasia: integration deficits in processing reference.

The present study investigated moderately impaired aphasic subjects' ability to integrate information across sentences by having them identify antecedents for ambiguous pronouns in brief narratives. In order to disambiguate the pronouns, the subjects had to consult either textual cues and/or extratextual cues. In addition, the subjects' ability to retrieve factual information was measured by having them identify explicitly stated noun referents. The results show that the aphasic subjects had significant difficulty using textual cues to resolve referents when the referents were not readily accessible through world knowledge. The patients had little difficulty interpreting referents which were recoverable from world knowledge or were stated explicitly. The explanatory power of world knowledge effects, grammatical class effects, memory effects, and linguistic integration effects in accounting for the deficit pattern observed is considered.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Disruption of reference in aging.

A homogeneous sample of normal adults living in a religious order in a study of age effects on reference as a cohesive device in discourse production and comprehension. Narrative and procedural discourse were examined across various levels of complexity and stimulus/response requirements. Results indicate that significant ambiguity of reference emerges in the younger elderly group (age 64-76) in comparison to the middle-aged group (age 27 to 55), and increases markedly in the older elderly group (age 77-92). Related impairments of comprehension and cognition were also observed. These findings are interpreted to be general features of linguistic variation with advancing age. Communicative consequences of ambiguous reference are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

Discourse performance in older adults.

Thirty-three elderly women, whose mean age was 76.2 years, and eighteen middle-aged women, whose mean age was 45.6 years, were assessed on a number of linguistic discourse tasks. The women were well educated, and most of them were or had been engaged in the teaching profession. Each woman was given narrative discourse tasks involving recall of stories, summarizing stories, giving the morals of the stories, procedural discourse tasks, interview to assess cognitive functioning and communicative abilities, and the following cognitive tests: Block Design, Symbol-Digit, Raven Coloured Progressive Matrices, and Word Fluency. The findings were that the older group generally performed more poorly than did the middle-aged group on most of the discourse tasks and cognitive tests. Within the older group, measures of quality of discourse were generally negatively related to age and positively related to scores on cognitive tests.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1985

Subcortical aphasia with deep dyslexia: a case study of a Japanese patient.

The reading performance of a Japanese Broca-type aphasic patient on a single-word reading test was investigated. The result indicated that the subject fits the symptom complex of deep dyslexia in more than one aspect. Unique characteristics of this subject included (1) the isolated subcortical site of the lesion, which apparently produced deep dyslexia, and (2) double dissociations between kanji and kana processing and between oral reading and reading comprehension. The performance of this subject was compared with that of another Japanese deep dyslexic subject in S. Sasanuma (1980, In M. Coltheart, K. Patterson, & J. C. Marshall (Eds.), Deep dyslexia, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul). A theoretical implication was attempted based on a dual coding process scheme by S. Sasanuma and O. Fujimura (1978, Cortex, 7, 1-18).

Aphasia↗
PubMed1984

Disruption of written language in aphasia: a case study.

This study documents the performance of a Wernicke aphasic on production of written discourse. The discourse data consisted of spontaneously produced texts of three different types: narrative discourse, personal and formal letters, and expository discourse. A detailed description of the language of this aphasic at a sentence and discourse level revealed preservation of discourse structure through proper use of cohesive devices despite severe disruption of linguistic structure at a sentence level.

Aphasia↗
PubMed1983

Production of procedural discourse in aphasia.

The abilities of a group of 15 moderately impaired aphasics and 15 normals to produce procedural discourse are described. The experimental tasks included producing four procedures of varying levels of complexity. The data were analyzed in terms of sentential grammar, discourse grammar, and subjective ratings of content and clarity of language. The results showed that aphasics produced well-structured discourse. The language of the aphasics' discourse was reduced in both complexity and amount, but was not qualitatively different from the language produced by the normals. The reduction of language in the procedures reflected selective reduction of hierarchically organized information. The investigation suggests that aphasics are capable of manipulating different types of information and that they might be helped in this by utilizing instrumental scripts which are representation of knowledge underlying procedures.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

Production of narrative discourse in aphasia.

The study described the abilities of a group of 15 moderately impaired aphasics and 15 normals to produce narrative discourse. The experimental tasks included telling stories, summarizing stories, and giving morals to stories. The data were analyzed in terms of sentential grammar, discourse grammar, and subjective ratings of content and clarity of language. The results showed that aphasics produced well-structured discourse. The language of the aphasics' discourse was reduced in both complexity and amount, as compared to that produced by normals. The reduction of language reflected selective reduction of hierarchically organized information. The findings of the study confirm the results of previous research on mildly impaired aphasics, which also showed preservation of discourse structure with selective reduction of information.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

Competence in independently living older adults: assessment and correlates.

Twenty-seven independently living older adults (18 women and 9 men) ranging in age from 65 to 87 years were interviewed in order to assess their competence. "Competence" was defined as effectiveness in dealing with the problems and opportunities characteristic of one's environment. Each participant completed the Block Design and Similarities subtests of the WAIS and the Associate Learning subtest of the Wechsler Memory Scale. Each participant was required to produce three samples of procedural discourse and one of narrative discourse. Participants were rated for competence on the basis off the interview and for quality of interview, procedural, and narrative discourse. The reliability of the competence rating was estimated as .70 for a single rater and as .90 for the average of four raters. Competence correlated significantly with most of the cognitive measures and with each of the three quality of discourse ratings.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Individual differences in cognitive functioning in the elderly - phenomena and interpretation.

Residents (N = 27) of a Jewish home for the aged were given a battery of twenty-five tests of cognitive abilities. Participants included people carrying a diagnosis of organic brain syndrome. Subsets of tests were designed to measure immediate sequential memory, ability to handle categories, and ability to execute motor patterns. There were marked individual differences among participants. Poorer performance was associated with carrying a diagnosis of organic brain syndrome and with a number of other background variables. There was empirical evidence that immediate sequential memory and ability to handle categories can be discriminatively measured. A wide variety of qualitative behavioral phenomena was described. The findings were interpreted in terms of an information-processing model.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Agrammatism in a patient with a lesion of the left temporal lobe. A case report].

A case of aphasia following left temporal lobe lesions is reported. The studied material was collected in a number of various tests including constructing of sentences and longer oral and written texts. A neurolioguistic analysis made possible an insight into the nature of the speech system in this case and characterization of disturbances in morphological aspects and their effect on syntaxis and coherent language. The observation lasting 4 years permitted an evaluation of changes taking place in language recovery during that time period.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Use of discourse analysis for evaluation of the condition of patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type].

The study was concerned with the ability to discourse in a group of 10 patients with minor or moderately severe disturbances in Alzheimer disease and in a control group of healthy subjects. The aim the study was to answer the question whether patients with this disease have language deficits, and if they have, then at what level they appear and what is their influence on the communication ability. The experimental task included production of a narrative and a procedural discourse. The results were analysed from the standpoint of grammar of clauses and their informative contents. The analysis showed that the patients had no deficit in respect to the extent of the discourse, its complexity and grammar correctness. However, errors were found in the contents of the discourse. In particular, the discourse of the patients had a greater number of irrelevant and incorrect propositions. The possible explanation of the demonstrated deficit pattern is discussed stressing the importance of progmatic and cognitive factors. The conclusion is that language disorders in these patients should not be regarded as a type of aphasia.

Aged↗