Characterization of language and phonological working memory in patients with myoclonic astatic epileptic syndrome

Abstract

The course of myoclonic astatic epileptic syndrome (MAES) is variable and little information is available about cortical functions in the presence of the disease. The objective of the present study was to assess the phonological working memory (PWM) and the verbal language of six patients between 8 and 18 years old, on treatment for at least 5 years, and good control of seizures, diagnosed in the Service of Epilepsy of Hospital of Clinics of Ribeirão Preto, São Paulo University in Brazil. The Test of Repetition of Meaningless Words was used to assess PWM. Video-recorded of language samples were collected during spontaneous and directed activities for the study of verbal language and pragmatics. A qualitative analysis showed that all patients presented deficits in the execution of the PWM test and only one patient showed poor mastery of all aspects studied. These finds contribute to strategies of treatment for language problems of patients with MAES, focusing on PWA.

Levels of Phonological Awareness, Working Memory, and Lexical Knowledge in Elementary School Children

“…As phonological awareness is acquired in an interdependent relationship with reading and writing, it is possible that children in the initial phase of the acquisition of reading and writing present difficulties in mastering the phonemic abilities. The results are similar to the findings of Freitas (2008).…”

“…However, it is possible to infer from the literature data (Fukuda et al, 2010;Rispens & Parigger, 2010), that probable phonological memory difficulties caused language difficulties and that these memory difficulties may also have contributed to difficulties in the mastery of phonological awareness abilities for the children of Group B.…”

“…In this context, researchers such as Alloway, Gathercole, Willis and Adams (2004) suggest that phonological awareness is not only affected by the tasks of reading and writing, but also by the development of the working memory abilities and by the refinement of other language abilities, in particular vocabulary, which has been confirmed by various studies (Fukuda et al, 2010;Kibby, 2009;Koo, Crain, LaSasso, & Éden, 2008;Schuchardt, Maehler, & Hasselhorn, 2008;Swanson, Zheng, & Jerman, 2009). Oakhill and Kyle (2000) demonstrated associations between the working memory abilities, both storage and processing demands, and two of the phonological awareness abilities (phoneme deletion and sound categorization).…”

“…As can be seen in Table 4, the working memory ability results presented by the participants of Group B for the tasks that directly involved the evaluation of the phonological loop (forward order digit span and the BCPR) were lower than those presented by Group A which contributes positively to the hypothesis of the phonological loop being a structure of the phonological memory mechanism which is highly involved in the process of oral language acquisition (Baddeley, 2003;Fukuda et al, 2010;Kibby, 2009). Regarding the tasks involving the central executive (backward order digit span), it was observed that both groups presented lowered scores, indicating that this ability is not fully consolidated for this age group, as shown by Gathercole (1998).…”

“…Evolutive differences in the phonological awareness tasks have not been fully elucidated, however, some evidence indicates reciprocal influences between phonological awareness abilities and learning to read and write, that is, as phonological awareness is a prerequisite for learning to read and write (McDowell, Lonigan, & Goldstein, 2007;Mota & Guimarães, 2011;Peeters, Verhoeven, de Moor, & van Balkom, 2009), the phonological awareness abilities can also be improved and expanded by exposure of the individual to being taught to read and write (Bernardino Junior, Freitas, Souza, Maranhe, & Bandini, 2006;Freitas, 2008).…”