PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

L S Turkstra

Publications and source records attributed to L S Turkstra.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Treating memory problems in adults with neurogenic communication disorders.

Historical approaches to memory therapy have focused on rehearsal or "relearning" of memory skills and on compensation for impairments. Whereas the use of rehearsal-based approaches has received little empirical support, the use of external compensatory devices has proved helpful to patients with a variety of neurogenic communication disorders. More recent approaches have capitalized on advances in cognitive psychology, permitting the identification of strengths and weaknesses in specific memory functions, and increasing our understanding of the role of response errors in the therapy process. These advances, together with applied behavioral analysis, allow therapy to be tailored to the cognitive profile of an individual patient, and help explain the successes and failures of earlier techniques. In this article, both historical and current approaches are discussed, and memory therapy guidelines are suggested.

Brain↗
PubMed2001

Social information processing in adolescents: data from normally developing adolescents and preliminary data from their peers with traumatic brain injury.

OBJECTIVE: To assess aspects of social information processing in naturalistic conversations, using online videotape tasks. DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS: The tasks were administered to 60 normally developing (ND) subjects ages 13 to 21, and 10 adolescents with traumatic brain injury (TBI). SETTING: University. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Task accuracy scores and measures of reliability and validity. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: ND group scores were generally high, without significant differences by race, sex or age. TBI group scores were significantly lower than ND group scores for both emotion recognition and detection of conversation skills. The results are discussed in light of the evaluation of pragmatic competence in adolescents with TBI.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Assessment of syntax after adolescent brain injury: effects of memory on test performance.

In this study, we investigated the influence of working memory load on performance of a task designed to measure receptive syntax ability. Subjects were 6 brain-injured adolescents and 6 hospitalized control subjects matched for age, sex, and general ability. Each subject was administered the Listening/Grammar subtest of the Test of Adolescent Language (TOAL-3) and a modified version of this subtest with identical syntax and fewer response choices (i.e., a reduced working memory processing and storage load). The syntactic structures tested on these tasks also were measured in spontaneous narratives. The brain-injured subjects' performance was significantly worse than that of controls on both versions of the syntax comprehension subtest. There was a significant group-by-task interaction, as brain-injured subjects' performance was significantly worse on the Listening/Grammar subtest than the modified subtest, whereas Control subjects'performance did not differ across the two tasks. In their spontaneous narratives, subjects in both groups produced the syntactic structures tested on the receptive syntax tasks, with no between-groups difference in syntax production. The results are discussed in terms of test validity and the impact of measurement methods on test performance in disordered groups.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Use of elaborative encoding to facilitate verbal learning after adolescent traumatic brain injury.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effectiveness of elaborative encoding in learning and remembering word definitions after traumatic brain injury (TBI). DESIGN: Two case studies. SETTING: University outpatient clinic. PARTICIPANTS: Two adolescents with severe memory impairments after TBI who needed specific vocabulary for school. INTERVENTIONS: A series of individual speech-language therapy sessions incorporating clinician- and subject-generated strategies to facilitate elaborative encoding. Target words were based on school requirements and pretreatment test results and were assigned randomly to treatment or control groups. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Accuracy of free-recalled definitions at the conclusion of therapy and after 1 month with no therapy. RESULTS: Significant improvement in expressed word knowledge at the conclusion of therapy, with improvement on treated words maintained at 1 month for both subjects. CONCLUSIONS: Elaborative encoding was an effective tool for teaching specific information required for school. Patterns of response differed substantially from those of normally developing children. Generalization to classroom use was planned for and should be measured in future research.

Accidents, Traffic↗
PubMed1996

Assessment of pragmatic communication skills in adolescents after traumatic brain injury.

Deficits in pragmatic communication ability have a significant impact on functional outcome from traumatic brain injury (TBI), particularly during adolescence, when sophisticated social communication skills are developing. There are few published tests designed to assess pragmatic skills in this age group. In the present study, four tasks designed to tap various aspects of pragmatic communication ability were administered to three brain-injured adolescents and 36 of their uninjured peers aged 15-18 years. The tasks evaluated the ability to negotiate, hint, describe a simple procedure, and understand sarcasm. The four tasks were found to tap distinct aspects of pragmatic ability in control subjects. Further, within the control group, task performance was related more to non-verbal reasoning ability than vocabulary skills. Scores for two of the three TBI subjects were poorer than those of their peers, while a third mildly injured subject performed within normal limits. Pragmatic task scores were consistent with the results of neuropsychological testing in the three TBI subjects. Implications for clinical management and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Electrodermal response and outcome from severe brain injury.

The relation of electrodermal response measures to outcome from early post-traumatic vegetative state (VS) was investigated in 15 brain-injured and five control subjects. Brain-injured subjects were in acute VS or persistent VS (PVS), or had recovered from acute VS (RVS). Significant group differences were found on all electrodermal response measures, primarily due to the greater amplitude, number and consistency of responses in control subjects. Group differences in electrodermal habituation and orientation to auditory tones reflected the absence of orientation in most RVS subjects and the absence of both habituation and orientation PVS subjects. The groups differed in their response to matching faces and names. All of the control subjects, two of five RVS subjects and none of five acute subjects produced significant responses. Surprisingly, two PVS subjects also produced significant responses. For acute subjects a positive outcome at 6 months post-trauma was associated with early electrodermal startle amplitude and baseline lability. These results indicate that electrodermal responsiveness is generally reduced following acute VS, even in subjects with a relatively good recovery. Greater electrodermal activity in early VS may be associated with better potential for recovery.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Acquired mutism: physiopathy and assessment.

The speechless patient presents a unique challenge to the clinician working with neurologically impaired adults. Acquired speechlessness, or mutism, has been associated with a variety of clinical states and syndromes after damage to central and peripheral nervous system structures. The intent of this paper is to summarize the reported states and syndromes associated with acquired mutism (eg, persistent vegetative state, akinesia), and to organize this information in a framework for clinical assessment of the speechless patient. For the purpose of discussion, speech production is divided into five interrelated processes: arousal; cognitive processing; affect and drive; motor initiation, planning, programming, and coordination; and execution of movement. Disorders characterized by mutism are classified according to the process or processes of speech production that primarily are affected. Each subtype of acquired mutism is characterized by a cluster of neurologic signs, which has been incorporated into a decision-making framework for use in a clinical setting.

Affect↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Partner effects in adolescent conversations.

UNLABELLED: Twenty-four adolescents participated in social conversations with a same-sex peer, an opposite-sex peer, or a speech-language pathologist (SLP) or graduate student. The conversations were compared in regard to specific verbal and nonverbal behaviors, with the goal of identifying conversational behaviors that may be assessed with validity in a clinical setting. Significant differences were found in speaker and listener linguistic behaviors between conversations with peers and those with clinicians. A trend towards the increase in speaker nonverbal behaviors was also noted with clinician partners. Conversations with opposite-sex peers tended to be characterized by fewer direct questions, reduced listener eye contact, and increased listener nonverbal behaviors than those with same-sex peers. Several behaviors occurred rarely in any group, including physical contact between partners and requests for clarification; others occurred with high frequency in all groups, including eye contact and emotional expression. The implications of these patterns for persons with communication disorders are considered. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: (1) To describe communication behaviors that may be measured in adolescent conversations. (2) To identify those communication behaviors that may be influenced by factors related to the conversation partner.

Adolescent↗