Browsing by Author "Valkama, Hannele"

Aphasia is a language disorder caused by damage to the brain. People with aphasia can have difficulty in speech comprehension and production as well as reading and writing. There is considerable diversity in the patterns of speech and language impairment among patients with aphasia. Recovery from aphasia is highly variable, but there are three distinguishable phases: the acute, subacute, and chronic phase. Stud-ies have shown that some people with aphasia can learn novel words. Studying novel word learning in people with aphasia helps understand the role of new learning in recovery from aphasia. Previous studies from the chronic phase of aphasia suggest that semantic processing skills and novel word learning are linked. There is some evidence that aphasia severity and short-term verbal memory affect novel word learning ability. The objective of this study is to compare the speech and language skills and the novel word learning ability of people in the early stages of aphasia. The speech and language impairment pattern of the study participants was evaluated with the WAB (Western Aphasia Battery). The subtests Spontaneous speech, Auditory verbal comprehension, Naming and Word finding, Repetition, Reading and Writing were used as the measures for different language abil-ities. Novel word finding was evaluated with a computer-aided novel word learning task. The word learn-ing task included a practice session and two tests. The results from the tests were used as the measure for novel word learning ability. Receptive novel word learning was correlated with comprehension skills. This result strengthens the view that intact semantic processing is important in receptive novel word learning. Writing skills were also cor-related with receptive novel word learning, but reading skills were not. Repetition, naming, and spontane-ous speech were not correlated with receptive novel word learning.