Recovery process of a Japanese alexic without agraphia

Kashiwagi, Toshihiro; Kashiwagi, Asako

doi:10.1080/02687038908248977

Cited by 30 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…Kashiwagi and Kashiwagi (1989) claimed that their patient, although not overtly using kinesthetic information when reading, was activating kinesthetic images. This was based on the finding that their patient made more reading errors when concurrently drawing triangles with his left index finger (requiring a kinesthetic image of a triangle) than when repetitively tapping the finger (not requiring a kinesthetic image).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Overt use of a tactile/kinaesthetic strategy shifts to covert processing in rehabilitation of letter-by-letter reading

et al. 2010

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Background Letter-by-letter readers identify each letter of the word they are reading serially in left to right order before recognizing the word. When their letter naming is also impaired, letter-by-letter reading is inaccurate and can render even single word reading very poor. Tactile and/or kinesthetic strategies have been reported to improve reading in these patients, but only under certain conditions or for a limited set of stimuli. Aims The primary aim of the current study was to determine whether a tactile/kinesthetic treatment could significantly improve reading specifically under normal reading conditions, i.e. reading untrained words presented in free vision and read without overt use of the strategy. Methods & Procedures Three chronic letter-by-letter readers participated in a tactile/kinesthetic treatment aimed at first improving letter naming accuracy (phase 1) and then letter-by-letter reading speed (phase 2). In a multiple case series design, accuracy and speed of reading untrained words without overt use of the trained tactile/kinesthetic strategy was assessed before phase 1, after phase 1 and again after phase 2. Outcomes & Results All three patients significantly improved both their speed and accuracy reading untrained words without overt use of the trained tactile/kinesthetic strategy. All three patients required the additional practice in phase 2 to achieve significant improvement. Treatment did not target sentence level reading, yet two of the three patients became so adept that they could read entire sentences. Conclusions This study replicates previous findings on the efficacy of tactile/kinesthetic treatment for letter-by-letter readers with poor letter naming. It further demonstrates that this treatment can alter cognitive processing such that words never specifically trained can be read in free vision without overtly using the trained strategy. The data suggest that an important element in achieving this level of generalization is continuing training beyond the point of initial mastery (i.e. accurate letter naming).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Kashiwagi and Kashiwagi (1989) reported results for a patient with pure alexia who was trained four times per week over a period of five months to copy Japanese characters and then read them aloud. The patient succeeded in improving his reading of some, but not all, characters without overt use of the trained kinesthetic strategy.…”

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confidence: 99%

Overt use of a tactile/kinaesthetic strategy shifts to covert processing in rehabilitation of letter-by-letter reading

et al. 2010

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“…Once letter identification has reached an acceptable level, training is then geared toward improving speed and accuracy of reading. The benefit of tactile/kinesthetic input to assist in letter naming was acknowledged by Goldstein (1948) and documented in a number of subsequent case reports across a variety of language systems (Kashiwagi & Kashiwagi, 1989; Kreindler & Ioansescu, 1961; LaPointe & Kraemer, 1983; Luria, 1970, Stachowiack & Poeck, 1976). Of particular interest are studies that experimentally controlled for the specific effects of tactile or kinesthetic treatment in alexia with impaired letter naming.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Multimodal alexia: Neuropsychological mechanisms and implications for treatment

et al. 2011

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Letter-by-letter (LBL) reading is the phenomenon whereby individuals with acquired alexia decode words by sequential identification of component letters. In cases where letter recognition or letter naming is impaired, however, a LBL reading approach is obviated, resulting in a nearly complete inability to read, or global alexia. In some such cases, a treatment strategy wherein letter tracing is used to provide tactile and/or kinesthetic input has resulted in improved letter identification. In this study, a kinesthetic treatment approach was implemented with an individual who presented with severe alexia in the context of relatively preserved recognition of orally spelled words, and mildly impaired oral/written spelling. Eight weeks of kinesthetic treatment resulted in improved letter identification accuracy and oral reading of trained words; however, the participant remained unable to successfully decode untrained words. Further testing revealed that, in addition to the visual-verbal disconnection that resulted in impaired word reading and letter naming, her limited ability to derive benefit from the kinesthetic strategy was attributable to a disconnection that prevented access to letter names from kinesthetic input. We propose that this kinesthetic-verbal disconnection resulted from damage to the left parietal lobe and underlying white matter, a neuroanatomical feature that is not typically observed in patients with global alexia or classic LBL reading. This unfortunate combination of visual-verbal and kinesthetic-verbal disconnections demonstrated in this individual resulted in a persistent multimodal alexia syndrome that was resistant to behavioral treatment. To our knowledge, this is the first case in which the nature of this form of multimodal alexia has been fully characterized, and our findings provide guidance regarding the requisite cognitive skills and lesion profiles that are likely to be associated with a positive response to tactile/kinesthetic treatment.

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“…Previous studies and our own data have shown that, among Japanese people, kūsho behavior occurs frequently in both daily life and experimental settings without any instructions, regardless of age and time period [6, 9]. Such spontaneous kūsho behavior should be distinguished from the strategy used by pure alexia patients where they read letters or characters by tracing them, sometimes called “kinesthetic facilitation” [22–25]. However, both types of finger writing appear to stem from a tight coupling of visual representation and kinetic factors in written languages, as supported by studies in neuropsychology [26, 27] and brain imaging [28].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Writing in the air: Facilitative effects of finger writing in older adults

2019

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Kūsho, which refers to a behavior in which one moves the index finger as a substitute for a pen in the air or on a surface, mostly used when trying to recall the shape of a written character or the spelling of a word, has been known to facilitate cognitive task performance among kanji writing-system users. This study investigates whether the facilitative effect of kūsho, the existence of which has been exclusively confirmed in younger adults, is present in old age. Moreover, to further understand the interaction between finger movement and cognitive processing, we analyzed the correlation between the kūsho effect and factors such as age, mini-mental state examination (MMSE) score, and number of years of education. The kūsho effect was assessed by a task where participants mentally assembled a set of kanji subparts to form an actual character. The results showed a significant facilitative effect of kūsho and a strong negative correlation between kūsho effect and education. This study confirms the benefits of finger movement for solving cognitive tasks involving visual processing of written language among older adults and suggests the kūsho effect may be mediated by education.

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Recovery process of a Japanese alexic without agraphia

Cited by 30 publications

References 12 publications

Overt use of a tactile/kinaesthetic strategy shifts to covert processing in rehabilitation of letter-by-letter reading

Overt use of a tactile/kinaesthetic strategy shifts to covert processing in rehabilitation of letter-by-letter reading

Multimodal alexia: Neuropsychological mechanisms and implications for treatment

Writing in the air: Facilitative effects of finger writing in older adults

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