Temporal and Episodic Analyses of the Story of Cinderella in Latent Aphasia

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study was to improve our understanding of the language characteristics of people with latent aphasia using measures that examined temporal (i.e., real-time) and episodic organization of discourse production. Method Thirty AphasiaBank participants were included (10 people with latent aphasia, 10 people with anomic aphasia, and 10 neurotypical control participants). Speech material of Cinderella narratives was analyzed with Praat software. We devised a protocol that coded the presence and duration of all speech segments, dysfluencies such as silent and filled pauses, and other speech behaviors. Using these durations, we generated a range of temporal measures such as speech, articulation, and pure word rates. Narratives were also coded into episodes, which provided information about the discourse macrostructure abilities of the participants. Results The latent aphasia group differed from controls in number of words produced, silent pause duration, and speech rate, but not articulation rate or pure word rate. Episodic organization of the narratives was similar in these 2 groups. The latent and anomic aphasia groups were similar in most measures, apart from articulation rate, which was lower in the anomic group. The anomic aphasia group also omitted more episodes than the latent aphasia group. Conclusions The differences between latent aphasia and neurotypical controls can be attributed to a processing speed deficit. We propose that this deficit results in an impaired ability to process information from multiple cognitive domains simultaneously.

Sentence Recall in Latent and Anomic Aphasia: An Exploratory Study of Semantics and Syntax

“…To date, only Newcombe and Marshall [34], to our knowledge, explored this issue; they did not find a difference between the two groups of people with left hemisphere damage whom they studied. Previous findings [12,15,16] suggest that language skills, both in terms of accuracy as well as speed of delivery, are affected in latent aphasia. Influenced by processing speed theory [60], DeDe and Salis [15] proposed that latent aphasia is characterized by a faulty simultaneity mechanism-that is, an inability to simultaneously plan and execute multiple linguistic and other cognitive operations [60].…”

“…Previous findings [12,15,16] suggest that language skills, both in terms of accuracy as well as speed of delivery, are affected in latent aphasia. Influenced by processing speed theory [60], DeDe and Salis [15] proposed that latent aphasia is characterized by a faulty simultaneity mechanism-that is, an inability to simultaneously plan and execute multiple linguistic and other cognitive operations [60]. The effect of syntactic complexity on sentence recall, and especially of implausible sentences, is another unexplored issue in mild forms of aphasia.…”

“…With its semi-automated function of silent pause identification (see Appendix C), Praat segmented the spectrograph between speech and silent segments (see Appendix D). The minimum silence detection threshold was set at 200 ms [15,26,82,83] (shown in the first screenshot of Appendix C). A trained student assistant checked and adjusted manually as appropriate all segments generated by Praat for accuracy and also transcribed orthographically participant responses.…”

“…Spoken naming ability, a cardinal diagnostic feature of aphasia, as measured by confrontation naming tests, is within normal limits in latent aphasia [12,14]. Latent aphasia is usually undetected by standard aphasia tests [12,[15][16][17]. However, some authors have subsumed it under anomic aphasia [18][19][20], indirectly acknowledging that language abilities in people with latent aphasia are somewhat mildly impaired.…”

“…Temporal speech measures are real-time measures that examine durations of silent and speech segments, thus affording greater precision, which helps to refine our understanding of the underlying cognitive processes that underpin recall [25,26]. Such measures can differentiate people with latent from those with anomic aphasia and neurotypical controls [15,16,27]. We should note that the present study is exploratory and utilized opportunistic, secondary data with a small number of experimental stimuli.…”