SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Comprehension”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

A study of idiom comprehension in children with semantic-pragmatic difficulties. Part II: Between-groups results and discussion.

Using a play-based methodology and a symptom checklist, this study investigated idiom comprehension in 26 children aged between 6-11 who were considered to have semantic-pragmatic difficulties. This group was compared with two groups of mainstream children and a group of children with (other) language disorders not primarily of a semantic or pragmatic nature. The results indicate that the children with semantic-pragmatic difficulties did, as a group, demonstrate significantly fewer appropriate idiomatic interpretations and significantly more inappropriate interpretations than did any of the other three groups. However, the higher level of inappropriate scores in the semantic-pragmatic difficulties group reflected a large number of 'fuzzy' actions rather than significantly higher rates of literality. This may indicate an awareness among these children that the literal meaning is inappropriate in the absence of adequate idiom vocabulary. It may also reflect difficulty in retrieving known idioms from memory and/or in selecting the most appropriate meaning from several possibilities in context. Despite relative weakness, the children with semantic-pragmatic difficulties displayed appropriate interpretations considerably more often than they evidenced inappropriate ones. Within-group analysis reveals that the children diagnosed with Asperger syndrome or high-functioning autism performed less well than did those diagnosed with 'semantic-pragmatic disorder'. Nevertheless, both of these subgroups encompassed a considerable range of comprehension ability with regard to the 12 common idioms tested. Analysis of the play task performance and symptom checklist suggests that this variation probably reflects differences in the critical semantic and pragmatic skills underpinning idiom comprehension. These include flexibility of thought, theory of mind, attention to context, prosody and overall coherence, as well as the ability to integrate world knowledge and current contextual information to guide inferencing. In combination with definition task data and broader knowledge of symptomatology, the play task may be used to identify the sites and sources of idiom comprehension breakdown in individual children. It is probable that idiom comprehension in this group of children with semantic-pragmatic difficulties was facilitated by the inclusion of only concrete idioms and by the visual support provided by the play set. Nevertheless, the moderate to age-appropriate ability displayed by this group in this context suggests that the characterization of children with semantic-pragmatic difficulties as predominantly literal needs to be revised. Rather than seeking a blanket characterization of an essentially heterogeneous group, it may be more useful to consider idiom comprehension a secondary manifestation of semantic and/or pragmatic difficulties. Since the children who exhibit these difficulties vary in symptomatology and, probably, in aetiology, it follows that they will also vary with respect to idiom comprehension and the reasons for its breakdown.

Autistic Disorder↗

PubMed1992

Adults' reading comprehension: effects of syntactic complexity and working memory.

Two experiments investigated the relationship between working memory and reading comprehension. In the first, college students, 18 to 26 years of age, and adults, 60 to 92 years of age, were given a battery of tests of working memory, a standard timed reading comprehension test, and a reading test designed to explore how syntactic complexity affects comprehension. In a follow-up study, the adults were retested on a modified version of the syntax comprehension text. Age group declines in working memory and reading comprehension were obtained in Experiment I; age group declines in reading rate but not comprehension were obtained in Experiment II. The results suggest that working memory limitations affect elderly adults' ability to process complex syntactic constructions, lowering comprehension in the timed test (Experiment I) and reducing reading rates in the untimed test (Experiment II).

Adolescent↗

PubMed1995

Sentence comprehension in multiple sclerosis.

INTRODUCTION: Explanations of sentence processing difficulty in aphasia have implicated slowed information processing speed. We tested this hypothesis by evaluating sentence comprehension in multiple sclerosis (MS), and relating comprehension performance to measures of information processing speed. MATERIAL & METHODS: Twenty right-handed, high school-educated, non-demented, native English speakers with clinically definite MS and 16 age- and education-matched control subjects were examined on 3 different sentence comprehension measures that stress grammatical appreciation. Performance was related to quantitative assessments of mental information processing speed. RESULTS: Group-wide analyses demonstrated a trend toward sentence comprehension difficulty in MS. Analyses of individual patient profiles identified a subgroup of MS patients who were consistently impaired to a significant extent across all sentence comprehension tasks. Their sentence comprehension difficulty was associated with selectively compromised mental information processing speed. CONCLUSION: Sentence comprehension difficulty in MS is associated with slowed information processing speed. This finding supports the claim that information processing speed contributes to sentence processing.

Adult↗

PubMed1996

Learning disabled and average readers' working memory and comprehension: does metacognition play a role?

The present study investigates (a) whether learning disabled readers' working memory deficits that underlie poor reading comprehension are related to a general system, and (b) whether metacognition contributes to comprehension beyond what is predicted by working memory and word knowledge. To this end, performance between learning and disabled (N = 60) and average readers (N = 60) was compared on the reading comprehension, reading rate, and vocabulary subtests of the Nelson Skills Reading Test, Sentence Span test composed of high and low imagery words, and a Metacognitive Questionnaire. As expected, differences between groups in working memory, vocabulary, and reading measures emerged, whereas ability groups were statistically comparable on the Metacognitive Questionnaire. A within-group analysis indicated that the correlation patterns between working memory, vocabulary, metacognition, and reading comprehension were not the same between ability groups. For predicting reading comprehension, the metacognitive questionnaire best predicted learning disabled readers' performance, whereas the working memory span measure that included low-imagery words best predicted average achieving readers' comprehension. Overall, the results suggest that the relationship between learning disabled readers' generalised working memory deficits and poor reading comprehension may be mediated by metacognition.

Child↗

PubMed1994

Comprehensive periodic health examination: impact on health care utilisation and costs in a working population in Japan.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To examine the impact of a comprehensive periodic health examination programme on health care utilisation and costs in a working population. DESIGN: A cohort method was used to observe the trends in health care utilisation and costs for a group of local government employees from 1 February 1986 until 31 January 1992, during which time (in 1988) a comprehensive periodic health examination programme had been introduced. Health care utilisation was measured by a claim rate per employee (number of claims in a year divided by number of employees) and a utilisation rate per 100 employees (number of employees who submitted at least one claim in a year divided by number of employees x 100). Health care costs were measured by claim costs per employee (total cost of claims divided by number of employees). National and prefectural changes in per capita health care costs were used for the adjustment of claim costs. Internal comparisons were made in relation to the intensiveness of the periodic health examinations administered before the introduction of the comprehensive programme. SETTING: Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. PARTICIPANTS: A total of 19,146 local government employees (12,455 men, 6691 women) who worked in small cities, towns, and villages in Fukuoka Prefecture throughout the study period participated. MAIN RESULTS: Both the claim and utilisation rates showed an increase in 1988 when the comprehensive programme was introduced. After adjustment for the national changes in per capita health care costs and the aging effect of the study participants, substantial increases in claim costs were noted after introduction of the comprehensive programme. The programme had a greater but short term effect of increasing the health care utilisation of those who had received less intensive periodic health examinations before 1988, but no similar effect on claim costs was noted. CONCLUSIONS: The comprehensive programme had some role in increasing health care utilisation and costs. Its effect on costs was confirmed when the general population or another population was used as a reference. When comparisons were made internally, the comprehensive programme was seen to have had a greater but short term effect of increasing the utilisation of those who had previously received less intensive health examinations to equalise the health care utilisation and costs within the study population.

Adult↗

PubMed1980

Sound recognition in relation to aural language comprehension in aphasic patients.

This study was undertaken to determine whether some aphasic defects in aural language comprehension might be a reflection of cognitive impairment which also affects the recognition of meaningful, non-verbal sounds. Defects in sound recognition were consistently associated with aural comprehension defects of at least comparable severity and the majority of aphasics with impaired aural comprehension failed sound recognition. Although some aphasics with impaired aural comprehension performed normally in sound recognition, their language comprehension impairments were not of lesser severity than those shown by aphasics failing sound recognition. The relationship between sound recognition and reading comprehension was different in nature from that between sound recognition and aural comprehension.

Adult↗

PubMed1994

Neuropsychological and neuroradiologic correlates of emotional prosody comprehension.

We examined a series of 59 patients with acute stroke lesions for the presence of comprehension emotional aprosody. Based on a standardized assessment of comprehension of emotional intonation, 29 patients (49%) showed emotional aprosody (17% "mild" aprosody [n = 10] and 32% "severe" aprosody [n = 19]). Patients with comprehension emotional aprosody showed a higher frequency of extinction on double-simultaneous stimulation, anosognosia, and deficits in facial emotion comprehension. Patients with comprehension emotional aprosody also showed a higher frequency of right-hemisphere lesions involving the basal ganglia and the temporoparietal cortex and more severe frontal and diencephalic atrophy. Comprehension emotional aprosody was not necessarily associated with poststroke depression (PSD) since patients with and without PSD showed similar impairments in emotional prosody comprehension.

Adult↗

PubMed1988

Praxis and gesture comprehension in 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds.

This investigation examined (a) whether the ability to comprehend pantomimed gestures improves with age in young children and whether the ability to point to the actual object precedes the ability to point to a functional associate and (b) whether there is a difference in the ability to comprehend pantomimed gestures between learning-disabled and normal subjects. The Gesture Comprehension Test, the Imitation of Postures test, and the Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language were administered to 68 normal children and 24 learning-disabled children 4 to 6 years of age. Results indicated that gesture comprehension improved with age and that the ability to point to the actual object preceded the ability to point to its functional associate. Boys performed significantly better than girls. There was no significant difference between normal and learning-disabled subjects' ability to comprehend gestures. A moderate correlation was found between the Gesture Comprehension Test and the Test for Auditory Comprehension of Language; a low correlation was found between the Gesture Comprehension Test and the Imitation of Postures test. These results suggest the possibility that in preschool children and young school-age children, gesture comprehension may be more closely related to language than to nonsymbolic aspects of praxis.

Aging↗

PubMed1995

[Auditory comprehension in transcortical motor aphasia due to a medial lesions of the left frontal lobe].

We assessed the anatomical findings and auditory comprehension of six patients with transcortical motor aphasia due to medical lesions of the left frontal lobe. All patients were right-handed and were initially mute for several hours after the onset, and they exhibited mild paresis of the right lower extremity. Their spontaneous speech was sparse and not fluent, and sometimes accompanied by echolalia, but their articulation was normal and repetition was excellent. They had difficulty in recalling words. A diagnosis of transcortical motor aphasia was made on the basis of their clinical symptoms. All patients were found to have an infarct in the left medial frontal region by MRI and/or CT. We administered the Western Aphasia Battery and 50 line drawing pointing task in order to evaluate auditory comprehension. Based on the results we concluded that there is no impairment of auditory comprehension of single words when lesions are limited to the superior frontal gyrus, but that lesions extending to the middle frontal gyrus interfere with auditory comprehension of single words. Our observations indicate that the middle frontal gyrus plays an important role in auditory comprehension of single words. All of the patients displayed impaired auditory comprehension of sentences even when their lesions were strictly limited to the medial frontal lobe. This suggests that the medial frontal lobe plays some role in the auditory comprehension of sentences.

Aged↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Patient comprehension of gastroenterology (GI) educational materials.

The purpose of this study was to describe patient comprehension of discharge instruction materials used by one gastroenterology department. Two conceptual frameworks, Orem's self-care model of nursing and Klare's reading comprehension model, were used to guide research design and to explain study findings. A descriptive correlational design was used to explore the relationship between years of schooling, word recognition, and reading comprehension. The study participants (n = 30) included 10 male and 20 female patients. Mean years of schooling was post-high school; mean word recognition score was high school level. Findings included moderate correlation between years of schooling and word recognition scores (r = .64) and strong correlation between word recognition and reading comprehension scores (r = .77-.82). Reading comprehension scores for the majority of participants (60%) were at the frustration comprehension level. Findings suggest that word recognition ability and educational level may be insufficient to ensure comprehension.

Adult↗

PubMed2026

Modulating sentence comprehension in people with aphasia through anodal tDCS: A double-blind randomized cross-over study.

This double-blind randomized cross-over study investigated the effects of perilesional anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (AtDCS) combined with speech-language therapy on sentence comprehension in eight individuals with chronic nonfluent agrammatic aphasia. The behavioral therapy consisted of an intensive comprehension treatment including drilling in sentence-to-picture matching and Mapping Therapy. Each participant underwent both the anodal tDCS and sham stimulation conditions (five received sham first followed by real stimulation, and the remaining three the reverse sequence), with each condition paired with the same behavioral treatment and separated by a four-month washout period. Stimulation was applied over the perilesional area (left BA6) for 20 min during daily 40-min therapy sessions over four consecutive weeks. Sentence comprehension was assessed with the RiComprendo battery and functional communication with the Communicative Effectiveness Index (CETI). Data were analyzed using paired t-tests, Bayesian analyses, and linear mixed-effects models to control for baseline performance and individual variability. Both stimulation conditions produced significant pre-to-post improvements in sentence comprehension, particularly for syntactically complex structures such as passives and center-embedded object relatives. However, gains were overall greater following AtDCS, as reflected in larger effect sizes, stronger Bayes factors, and a significant treatment effect in the mixed-effects models. Only the AtDCS condition yielded significant improvements in self-perceived comprehension abilities on the CETI. These findings suggest that AtDCS over perilesional cortical areas may boost the effects of traditional language therapy on sentence comprehension, supporting its feasibility and potential as an adjuvant intervention in post-stroke aphasia rehabilitation.

Humans↗

PubMed1995

Efficacy of comprehensive rehabilitation programs and back school for patients with low back pain: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The use of back school as a treatment for low back pain is widespread, but determining the efficacy of this approach is complicated by variations in back schools and study methods across clinical trials. The purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis to synthesize existing evidence on the efficacy of back school as either a primary intervention or a part of a comprehensive rehabilitation program for patients with low back pain. METHODS: The results of 19 prospective randomized controlled trials were evaluated. Quantitative reviewing procedures were used to calculate the effect sizes that compared patients receiving back school with those in a control or comparison group. Effect sizes were computed for 206 hypothesis tests involving 2,373 patients. RESULTS: The average effect size for comprehensive rehabilitation programs that included back school (d = 0.28) was larger than the average effect size for programs that offered back school as the primary intervention (d = -0.14). When effect sizes were stratified by program type and outcome, the comprehensive programs were superior to primary back school programs with respect to pain reduction, increased spinal mobility, and increased strength. Both types of programs showed reasonable success with education/compliance outcomes (d = 0.27-0.28). Lower effect sizes were found among the types of programs for disability and work/vocational outcomes (d < or = 0.20). CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION: Back schools were most efficacious when coupled with a comprehensive rehabilitation program. Efficacy was supported for the treatment of pain and physical impairments and for education/compliance outcomes. Work/vocational and disability outcomes, however, were not improved substantially beyond control levels in comprehensive or primary back school programs. [Di Fabio RP. Efficacy of comprehensive rehabilitation programs and back school for patients with low back pain: a meta-analysis.

Comprehensive Health Care↗

PubMed1998

Sentence comprehension deficits in Alzheimer's disease: a comparison of off-line vs. on-line sentence processing.

Two studies explored whether sentence comprehension impairments in Alzheimer's disease (AD) are due to deficits in syntactic processing or memory. Study 1 used a picture-pointing sentence comprehension task to measure the final outcome of comprehension in an off-line fashion. It showed the comprehension of 30 patients with AD to be impaired, but suggested that the deficits could not be attributed solely to syntactic impairments. Study 2 investigated the effects of memory on sentence comprehension by comparing off-line (grammaticality judgment) with on-line (cross-modal naming) language processing in 11 AD and 9 control subjects. The results revealed impaired performance in the off-line task but normal performance in the on-line task using the same sentences. Performance on the off-line task correlated with independent measures of verbal working memory. These data are used to argue that sentence comprehension impairments are related to verbal working memory deficits in AD.

Aged↗

PubMed1998

Calibration of Comprehension: Research and Implications for Education and Instruction.

The ability to accurately evaluate one's understanding of text information is critical for optimum learning to take place. One widely used paradigm for examining the accuracy of individuals' self-assessed comprehension has been termed calibration of comprehension. In this paradigm, students read a passage and are asked to make predictions about their future performance on a comprehension test. Calibration of comprehension is the relation between students' confidence and performance or between predicted and actual performance. In the present paper we review research on calibration of comprehension, examining a number of variables that have been found to influence calibration ability. In the first three sections of our paper we focus on the effects of individual, task, and text variables on students' calibration of comprehension. In the final section, we discuss implications of research on calibration for education and instruction. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1999

Time Limitations Enhance Reading Comprehension.

Few studies in the domain of reading have explored the relation between time limitations and reading comprehension. Time limitations may enhance reading comprehension by promoting mindfulness in students, a construct which involves exertion of more effort and motivation. This study explored the effects of time constraints on reading comprehension in adult readers. Mild time constraints should create greater mindfulness in readers, resulting in enhanced comprehension. College students read passages under no time pressure, under mild time pressure, or under severe time pressure. Reading comprehension was assessed in each condition. The best reading comprehension was observed under mild time pressure. Implications are discussed. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.

Journal Article↗

PubMed1992

Sentence comprehension in Parkinson's disease: the role of attention and memory.

Sentence comprehension is a complex process involving at least attentional, memory, grammatical, and semantic components. We report three experiments designed to evaluate the impairments underlying sentence comprehension difficulties in nondemented patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). In the first experiment, we asked patients to answer simple questions about sentences which varied in terms of grammatical complexity and semantic constraint. We found that PD patients are significantly compromised in their ability to perform this task. Their difficulties became more prominent as grammatical complexity increased, but they were significantly assisted by semantic constraints that limited possible interpretations of a sentence. Analyses of individual patient profiles revealed heterogeneous performance across the group of PD patients and somewhat inconsistent performance for patients across testing sessions. In the second experiment, we tested the possibility that patients' heterogeneous performance on the sentence comprehension task is due to an impairment in memory or attention, cognitive domains known to be compromised in some PD patients. Although PD patients and control subjects differed on one memory measure, there were no significant correlations between attention and memory performance and the results of the sentence comprehension task. In the final experiment, we manipulated the sentences used in the first experiment in a fashion that stressed the need for memory and attention in a sentence. The results indicated that PD patients are significantly compromised in their ability to attend to certain critical grammatical features of a sentence. A regression analysis identified specific grammatical, semantic, and attentional mechanisms as significant contributors to PD patients' overall sentence comprehension, accounting for over 97% of the variance in their performance. We conclude that there are multiple sources of cognitive difficulty underlying PD patients' sentence comprehension impairment.

Aged↗

PubMed1996

Working memory capacity predicts language comprehension in schizophrenic patients.

The association between language comprehension and working memory capacity was evaluated in 25 male DSM-III-R schizophrenic patients (14 inpatients; 11 outpatients), and in 11 male normal controls (no lifetime DSM-III-R disorder). Patients and controls did not differ significantly on age and education. Language comprehension was examined as a function of two types of processing demand: grammatical complexity (complex versus simple sentences) and presentation rate (accelerated versus conversational). Schizophrenic patients showed significantly reduced language comprehension and decreased working memory capacity for language, compared with controls. Patients showed general difficulty in comprehending accurately, rather than exhibiting problems with specific grammatical structures. Subject groups were highly accurate and did not differ in their ability to perceive the individual words in sentences presented at the accelerated rate (intelligibility). Presentation rate and grammatical complexity affected comprehension accuracy in all groups, however, with increases in rate and complexity producing decreases in understanding. Of most importance, theoretically, is the finding that working memory capacity predicted language comprehension accuracy in both schizophrenic patients and normal controls. Results suggest that language comprehension deficits in schizophrenic patients may involve a general dysfunction that is associated with working memory capacity for language.

Adult↗

PubMed1982

Auditory language comprehension in aphasia: a factor-analytic study.

A battery of nine auditory comprehension test, taken by seventy aphasics, was subjected to a factor analysis. Two factors, interpretable respectively as a lexical semantic and a syntactic comprehension factor, were obtained. Comprehension described in terms of these factors was found to be related to criterion variables of importance, namely the Token Test and a rating of comprehension in daily life. Broca's aphasics were found to be more impaired in syntactic than in lexical semantic comprehension; Wernicke patients tended to have low scores on both factors. The results of this study support the view of independent lexically based and syntactic processing in auditory comprehension which can be differentially disrupted by brain damage.

Adult↗