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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1992

Reading in children and adolescents after early onset hydrocephalus and in normally developing age peers: phonological analysis, word recognition, word comprehension, and passage comprehension skill.

Compared 50 children with early hydrocephalus, tested between the ages of 6 and 15 years, and their 51 age- and education-matched controls on 4 reading skills. Hydrocephalus and control groups did not differ in the ability to recognize words or to use phonological skills to decode "pretend" words, although the hydrocephalus group was poorer than the controls in understanding real words and texts. When individual differences in word recognition ability were controlled, the hydrocephalus group remained poorer than the controls in understanding single words and passages of text. Word recognition and passage comprehension skills were more highly correlated in the control group than in the hydrocephalus group. The passage comprehension scores of the hydrocephalus group lagged behind their word recognition scores, even for those children of normal or better IQ. Although the factors related to proficient and deficient reading comprehension for children with early hydrocephalus require further study, the present data show that adequate levels of word recognition, at least as measured by accuracy, in these children coexist with a significant deficit in reading comprehension.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2021

Comprehension of skin cancer genetic risk feedback in primary care patients.

Few studies have examined comprehension and miscomprehension of genetic risk feedback for moderate-risk genes in the general population. We examined the prevalence and nature of accurate and inaccurate genetic risk feedback comprehension among those who received genetic testing for melanocortin-1-receptor (MC1R) gene variants that confer moderate melanoma risk. Participants (N = 145 Albuquerque, NM) were tested as part of a randomized controlled trial. Two weeks after receiving MC1R genetic risk feedback, participants answered open-ended questions regarding their reactions to the MC1R feedback report. Participants' comprehension of their feedback (average-risk or higher-risk for melanoma) was evaluated through qualitative analysis of open-ended responses. Most participants demonstrated comprehension of their feedback results (i.e., 63% of average-risk participants [ARPs]; 51% of higher-risk participants [HRPs]). Miscomprehension was evident in fewer participants (i.e., 16% of ARPs, 11% of HRPs). A few ARPs misunderstood the purpose of testing, whereas a few HRPs reported confusion about the meaning of their risk feedback. Some participants' responses to the open-ended questions were too ambiguous to ascertain comprehension or miscomprehension (i.e., 21% of ARPs, 38% of HRPs). Taken together, these findings suggest that genetic testing feedback for MC1R risk variants is largely comprehensible to general population participants. This study adds to the work examining comprehension and usage of common, moderate risk genetic information in public health contexts. However, to maximize the utility of genetic risk information in the general population, further research is needed to investigate and address areas where common genetic risk feedback misunderstandings occur.

Genetic testing↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Self-judged comprehension in adults: effects of age and skill.

We used an error detection paradigm to examine the effects of skill on young (M = 23.74) and old (M = 68.87) adults' self-judged comprehension of texts. Skill was defined as the ability to evaluate comprehension by detecting text problems. Multiple regression results indicated that problematic texts produced lower comprehension judgments for older readers, regardless of level of skill, than for younger readers. Only more skilled younger readers tended to lower their comprehension judgments for problematic text. Younger adults who were less skilled at evaluating their comprehension assessed their comprehension as superior to their more skilled peers. Less skilled older adults appear to know, better than less skilled younger adults, when they do not comprehend a text. Research is needed to examine older adults' perceived self-efficacy and use of regulation strategies to resolve comprehension failures.

Adolescent↗

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↗

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↗

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↗

PubMed1978

I don't understand what you mean by comprehension.

Current clinical approaches to the assessment of language comprehension in children are characterized by the measurement of "receptive" knowledge of lexical items and syntactic structure. A more comprehensive approach would go beyond measuring the child's ability to comprehend the literal meaning of sentences to include two other aspects of obtaining information from spoken utterances: presupposition and inference and illocutionary acts. A selected review of clinical instruments measuring language comprehension that are in current use is presented, revealing that these tests of vocabulary, basic concepts, and comprehension of syntactic structure are limited to the literal-meaning aspect of spoken messages. Tests of intelligence and reading skills for children and tests for adult aphasia include more complex comprehension items that require linguistic integration and inference. There are no tests that measure the listener's ability to determine the speaker's illocutionary intent. An integrated approach to the measurement of language comprehension is not available in the form of clinical tests.

Humans↗

PubMed1992

Randomized trial of comprehensive prenatal care for low-income women: effect on infant birth weight.

The effect of comprehensive prenatal care on birth weight was examined using a prospective randomized design. A total of 428 pregnant women were randomly assigned to comprehensive prenatal care (n = 217) or standard prenatal care (n = 211). Comprehensive care was provided by a multidisciplinary team of nurse-midwives, social workers, a nutritionist, paraprofessional home visitors, and a psychologist. Standard prenatal care consisted of medical care provided by obstetric residents. Multiple regression analysis using behavioral, demographic, and medical variables showed a strong relationship between the set of predictors and birth weight. Comprehensive care was related to higher birth weights for primiparous but not multiparous mothers. Separate analyses of variance for primiparas and multiparas similarly showed a favorable effect of comprehensive care on birth weight for primiparous but not multiparous mothers.

Birth Weight↗

PubMed1992

The Comprehensive Assessment of Symptoms and History (CASH). An instrument for assessing diagnosis and psychopathology.

The Comprehensive Assessment of Symptoms and History was developed for research studies of schizophrenia spectrum conditions and affective spectrum conditions. It is designed to provide a comprehensive information base concerning current and past signs and symptoms, premorbid functioning, cognitive functioning, sociodemographic status, treatment, and course of illness. Because the information base is broad, it is not wedded to a specific diagnostic system but rather permits clinicians and investigators to make diagnoses using a wide range of systems, including Research Diagnostic Criteria, DSM-III, DSM-III-R, and the International Classification of Diseases. Given the fact that disorders in psychiatry are not defined at the etiological or pathophysiological level, diagnostic criteria are prone to ongoing revision as our knowledge base changes. Research strategies suggest that investigators should maintain a flexible database to permit them to adapt to changes in diagnostic systems, to do comparative nosological studies, and, ultimately, to develop new diagnostic systems based on knowledge concerning the underlying neurobiological nature of disorders. Because it provides a comprehensive information base, the Comprehensive Assessment of Symptoms and History facilitates research of this type. Extensive developmental work has been done with the Comprehensive Assessment of Symptoms and History, including interrater and test-retest reliability studies, validity studies, training programs, and data entry programs.

Databases, Factual↗

PubMed1992

Thematic analysis in agrammatic comprehension: syntactic structures and task demands.

Aphasics' ability to assign thematic roles during sentence comprehension was investigated. The study was motivated by the hypothesis that capacity limitations, e.g., due to slowed processing operations, interact systematically with certain aspects of structural analysis more than with others. Experiments using a sentence-picture matching paradigm were conducted with several agrammatic Broca's and paragrammatic Wernicke's patients. Experiment 1 tested comprehension of various syntatic structures. The astoundingly good performance in Experiment 1 for both patient groups was attributed to the low task demands of the experiment. Raising the task demands, by delaying presentation of the relevant picture set in Experiment 2, resulted in a significant decrement of comprehension performance for agrammatic Broca's aphasics, but not for Wernicke's aphasics. Putting the main verb in the sentence-final position, as in Experiment 3, affected Wernicke's aphasics', but not Broca's aphasics' performance. In principle, one explanation for the performance differences between Experiments 1 and 2 for Broca's patient might be a deficit in these patients' verbal memory capacity. Therefore, verbal memory span on different word categories was tested in an additional experiment. No difference, however, was found between the Broca's patients' and the Wernicke's patients' capacity for verbal memory despite their different sentence comprehension profiles. The present data are taken to support the view that Broca's aphasics' comprehension behavior is due to the processing demands imposed by structural inference chains and not to a general reduction in verbal memory.

Adult↗

PubMed1975

Comprehending a word: the influence of speed and redundancy on auditory comprehension in aphasia.

To assess the contribution of various factors to comprehension of a target word, an auditory comprehension test was devised and administered to a series of aphasic patients. Patients were required to select from an array that picture which corresponded to a spoken target word. Each patient heard the target word under five conditions: (1) target spoken alone; (2) target embedded in a neutral (low redundancy) sentence enunciated at a normal rate of speaking; (3) target in a neutral sentence enunciated at a slow rate of speaking; (4) target embedded in a sentence containing semantic support (high redundancy); (5) target embedded in a sentence containing a semantically-deceptive element. Semantic redundancy and rate of presentation made contributions to comprehensibility. Semantic confusions were prevalent among all aphasics but, contrary to earlier reports, posterior patients were especially prone to acoustic confusions. Except for conduction aphasics, patients were more likely to confuse words which began with the same sounds than words which ended with the same sounds. Patients with adequate comprehension at the start of the testing displayed a uniform tendency to improve on the conditions administered later, while those with impaired comprehension at the start usually did not.

Aphasia↗

PubMed1992

Individual differences in working memory and comprehension: a test of four hypotheses.

A relationship has consistently been found between measures of working memory and reading comprehension. Four hypotheses for this relationship were tested in 3 experiments. In the first 2 experiments, a moving window procedure was used to present the operation-word and reading span tasks. High- and low-span subjects did not differentially trade off time on the elements of the tasks and the to-be-remembered word. Furthermore, the correlation between span and comprehension was undiminished when the viewing times were partialed out. Experiment 3 compared a traditional experimenter-paced simple word-span and a subject-paced span in their relationship with comprehension. The experimenter-paced word-span correlated with comprehension but the subject-paced span did not. The results of all 3 experiments support a general capacity explanation for the relationship between working memory and comprehension.

Adult↗

PubMed1979

Multiplicative effects on sentence comprehension for combined acoustic distortions.

This study was designed to explore the effect on speech comprehension of combining two types of signal distortion. A tape of clearly-enunciated sentences in quiet was distorted in each of four ways: low-pass (LP) filtering, time compression, interruption, and noise masking. Data are reported on a population of normal-hearing young men for multiple-choice answer tests of colloquial sentences of either LP filtered at 1, 2, 3, or 4 kHz, time compressed by computer at 250 words/min, interrupted (50 msec on--50 msec off), masked by speech-spectrum noise at +2 dB S/N, or given each of the 12 possible combinations of LP filtering plus the other three distortions. Individual distortion conditions were adjusted to reduce speech comprehension performance to about 90% accuracy, Low-pass filtering above 1 kHz reduced comprehension by no more than five to 10 percentage points, but when LP filtering was added to the other distortions in turn, latent effects were uncovered. The reduction in comprehension with the combined distortions was much greater than the simple additive effects of the distortion and LP filtering by themselves. For example, LP filtering above 2 kHz produced no measurable effect on sentence comprehension but this same distortion in combination with noise masking reduced performance from 89.4 to 59.7% correct (where 25% was chance). This study further validates the multiply-compounded nature of simultaneous types of distortion. The use of LP filtering extends the multiplicative principle to the simulated case of high-frequency hearing losses.

Adult↗

PubMed1991

Language skills of children and adolescents with Down syndrome: I. Comprehension.

This study investigates the development of vocabulary and syntax comprehension skills cross-sectionally in 48 children and adolescents with Down syndrome (Trisomy 21), aged 5-20 years, in comparison to 48 control children aged 2-6 years matched statistically for nonverbal mental age and mother's years of education. Age-equivalent scores on vocabulary (PPVT-R) and syntax (TACL-R) comprehension tests differed in the Down syndrome group but not the control group; vocabulary comprehension was relatively more advanced than syntax. Age-equivalent scores on nonverbal cognitive subtests of pattern analysis and short-term memory for bead arrangements (Stanford-Binet, 4th ed.) also differed for the Down syndrome group but not the control group, indicating an unusual pattern of nonverbal cognitive function in the Down syndrome group. Stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that chronological age and mean mental age, collectively, accounted for 78% of the variability in vocabulary comprehension and 80% of the variability in syntax comprehension in the Down syndrome group, with total passes on a hearing screening accounting for an additional 4% in each case. Implications for research are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1978

Dissociation of visual and auditory language comprehension capacity in aphasia.

Visual language comprehension capacity was compared with auditory language comprehension capacity in 26 aphasic subjects. The Token Test was used for both modalities. By the means of the difference in scores on the two tests three groups were separated, that is (1) a group with no essential difference between the two capacities, (2) a group with superior reading capacity and (3) a group with superior auditory capacity. Particular attention was directed to the second group. Seven subjects showed this type of dissociated comprehension. The group was found to be heterogeneous in their linguistic characteristics. The clinical type of aphasia included not only Wernicke's aphasia but also Broca's aphasia. A possible psychological explanation underlying this phenomenon was attempted. Anatomical correlation was also attempted. The hypothesis of sparing the left inferior parietal lobe is proposed as an explanation of why visual comprehension was better preserved than auditory comprehension.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Comprehension of synthetic speech produced by rule: a review and theoretical interpretation.

In this paper, we review research on the perception and comprehension of synthetic speech produced by rule. We discuss the difficulties that synthetic speech causes for the listener and the evidence that the immediate result of those difficulties is a delay in the point at which words are recognized. We then argue that this delay in processing affects not only lexical access but also comprehension processes. We consider the mechanisms by which the comprehension system adjusts to this delay, the resulting costs to higher level comprehension processes, and the changes that occur in the language processing system as its familiarity with synthetic speech increases. Based on the framework we have developed, we suggest several directions for future research on the comprehension of synthetic speech.

Female↗

PubMed1991

Analysis of auditory comprehension performance in individuals with severe aphasia.

This research compared the performance of 20 individuals with global and mixed nonfluent aphasia across the four auditory comprehension subtests of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (Word Discrimination, Body Part Identification, Commands, and Complex Ideational Material) and across the six subcomponents of the Word Discrimination Subtest (objects, actions, letters, colors, forms, and numbers). As expected, group means revealed severely reduced performance which was equally observable across all auditory comprehension tasks. To determine whether individual subjects demonstrated a pattern of consistently reduced performance for auditory comprehension tasks, z-scores and chi-square statistics were also calculated for each subject and task. The individuals with global aphasia demonstrated a greater number of statistically significant z-scores than was expected by chance. This was not true for the subjects with mixed nonfluent aphasia. Results of this research indicate that although as a group individuals with global aphasia may demonstrate consistently reduced auditory comprehension, when considered on an individual basis, this group may comprise a somewhat divergent population with respect to the configuration of preserved and impaired auditory comprehension skills.

Adult↗

PubMed1979

The developmental relation between cognitive stage and the comprehension of speaker uncertainty.

3 hypotheses were tested concerning the developmental relation between children's concepts of physical uncertainty and their comprehension of a speaker's uncertainty. 2 cognitive tasks of physical uncertainty were used to assign 56 subjects (aged 5-4 to 17-11) to 1 of 3 cognitive stages. 2 tests for comprehension of speaker uncertainty were administered to all participants. The results indicated that cognitive stage was related to (a) comprehension that a speaker could be uncertain, (b) comprehension that uncertainty could be expressed in different degrees or magnitudes, and (c) the internal consistency of judgments made about the relative degree of uncertainty conveyed by an utterance. These findings are interpreted as evidence for the position that development of cognitive stages is structurally related to comprehension of speech act uncertainty.

Adolescent↗