Browsing by Subject "uusien sanojen oppiminen"

Tavoitteet ja tausta. Tässä maisterintutkielmassa kuvataan afasian saaneiden henkilöiden kertovan puheen itsekorjauksia ja korjaamattomia ongelmajaksoja sekä sitä, onko puheen niillä yhteyttä uuden sanaston oppimisen kykyyn afasian subakuutissa vaiheessa, kun aivoverenkiertohäiriöstä on kulunut 0–3 kuukautta. Afasia on tavallinen aivoverenkiertohäiriön jälkitila, joka ilmenee vaikeutena ymmärtää ja tuottaa puhuttua tai kirjoitettua kieltä. Afasian saaneiden henkilöiden kyky oppia uusia sanoja on vaihtelevaa, mutta kroonisestikin afaattiset henkilöt pystyvät oppimaan uutta sanastoa. Puheen itsekorjaukset ovat puheenvuorojen hetkiä, joissa puhuja keskeyttää lausumansa ja muotoilee sen uudelleen. Alustavien tutkimusten perusteella afaattisen henkilön kyvyn monitoroida ja korjata omaa puhettaan on huomattu olevan yhteydessä kielelliseen toipumiseen. Tutkimusaihe on logopedisesti arvokas, sillä mikäli afasian saaneiden henkilöiden itsekorjauksilla ja uusien sanojen oppimiskyvyllä on yhteys, ne kannattaisi nostaa osaksi logopedistä afasian arviointia. Tutkittavat ja menetelmät. Tutkimusaineiston muodostivat 10 eriasteisesti afaattisen tutkittavan kertovan puheen näytteet sekä sanaston oppimiskokeen tulokset. Tutkittavat osallistuivat Helsingin yliopiston Opi sanoja -hankkeen tutkimukseen 0–3 kuukauden jälkeen sairastumisestaan. Oppimisaineisto kerättiin tietokoneavusteisella oppimistehtävällä, jossa tutkittavien tavoitteena oli oppia uusien sanojen ja piirroskuvien välinen assosiaatio. Itsekorjausaineisto koottiin tutkittavien puhenäytteistä kuvakerrontatehtävästä sekä sairastumiskertomuksesta. Näytteistä tehtiin keskustelunanalyyttiset notaatiot ja itsekorjauksia tarkasteltiin laadullisesti ja määrällisesti. Korjausten sekä korjaamattomien jaksojen yhteyttä oppimisen tuloksiin analysoitiin ryhmätasolla. Tulokset ja johtopäätökset. Tutkimustulosten perusteella afasian vaikeusaste on yhteydessä itsekorjausten esiintyvyyteen puheessa, mutta osuuksissa on yksilöllistä vaihtelua. Vaikeimmin afaattinen tutkittava tuotti kerronnassaan eniten itsekorjauksia ja korjaamattomia jaksoja, kun taas neljän lievemmin afaattista tutkittavan puhe ei sisältänyt ollenkaan korjaamattomia jaksoja. Tavallisin itsekorjaustyyppi oli sanan uudelleenmuotoilu, ja myös sanan keskeytys, epäröintiäänne, korjauspartikkeli sekä tauko olivat tavallisia korjauksen ja sanahaun keinoja. Neljä kymmenestä tutkittavasti osoitti kykyä oppia pitkäkestoisesti uutta sanastoa. Tilastollisesti merkitsevää yhteyttä sanaston oppimiskyvyn ja puheen itsekorjausten tai korjaamattomien ongelmajaksojen välillä ei tässä tutkimuksessa löytynyt.

Aims. One of the most common symptoms in aphasia is anomia, or word-finding difficulty. When retrieving words, that one has already learned causes a challenge, it is understandable that learning new ones can be difficult for people with aphasia. Studies have proven, though, that the ability to learn novel words doesn’t necessarily disappear in aphasia, but there is a wide individual variation in the learning ability. Because the ability to learn has been found to correlate with the response to therapy in aphasic individuals, researching learning and understanding it better is important from the clinical point of view. There are a lot of factors that affect learning, and modality could be one of them. In some previous studies, it has been noted that aphasic individuals were only able to learn novel words if they were in a written format. The aim of this study was to find out more about the effect of modality on learning novel words in chronic aphasia, and to compare the learning results of the aphasic individuals with those of healthy control participants. Methods. Two aphasic (AFA1 and AFA2) and two healthy control participants were recruited for this study. The learning experiment consisted of four learning conditions with different input-output modality combinations, meaning that the participants first either read or heard the words, and then either said them out loud or wrote them down. In each condition, there were 15 word-picture pairs to learn. The words were pseudowords and the pictures were black-and-white drawings of ancient farming equipment. Results and conclusions. The results of this study support the earlier results that suggest that even in chronic aphasia, learning novel words is still possible, but there is a lot of variation. In this experiment, AFA1 could learn words well, but AFA2 didn’t really learn them at all. Modality was found to be significant as well, since the learning results even for AFA1 were poor in two of the four learning conditions. Unlike in the previous studies, AFA1’s learning wasn’t dependent on reading the words but on writing them. Though her performance was most successful in the condition where the words were read and then written. In this condition, she learned all the 15 words and her learning was on the level of the healthy control participant. As of now, only few studies have been done on the effect of modality on learning in aphasia, but the results from this study and the previous ones encourage to do more research on this subject. Because a link has been found between learning ability and response to therapy, figuring out the best way to learn for each aphasic individual might also affect the treatment outcomes.

Background. Aphasia is a deficit of language and cognition caused by brain damage. Rehabilitation is based on reactivating and reorganizing the nervous system – or learning things anew. Learning is based on many factors, that would require more thorough examination to best allocate and plan rehabilitation. The impact of reaction speed on the ability to learn novel words has not yet been studied in aphasic patients, although inter- and intraindividual variability in their reaction times clearly exists. Some aphasic patients have also been associated with a behavioral pattern called speed-accuracy trade-off, a pattern where a person balances between acting fast or accurately. This has led to overly cautious or overly hasty responding in some aphasic patients, which potentially could influence the learning ability. Objectives. The purpose of this study is to examine reaction times and response accuracy and their possible relationship in a novel word learning task in aphasic patients and healthy controls. Special interest is placed on the occurrence of speed-accuracy trade-offs, or overly cautious or fast responding related to response accuracy outcome. Additionally, it is being examined if intrapersonal variability in reaction times predicts novel word learning ability. Methods. The participants of this study consist of 10 aphasic patients in subacute stage and 21 healthy age-matched controls. This study was executed as a part of “Opi sanoja” research project, in which novel word learning ability was studied through a computer-based word learning task. The purpose of the task was to learn six pseudo-words associated with a picture. The pictures were shown in pairs, of which the examinee was told to choose the right one according to seen and heard pseudo-word and earlier received feedback. Reaction speed was measured by reaction times recorded by the word learning task. Reaction times were compared with response accuracy in and between the study groups. Results and conclusions. Aligned with previous studies, aphasic patients learned novel words worse than the controls, although great interindividual variability was noted. The reaction times of aphasic patients were significantly slower, but again interindividual variability was large in the group. Reaction speed correlated with novel word learning in the control group, but not significantly in the aphasic group. Intraindividual reaction time variability was notable in both groups, being twice as large in the aphasic group. Broader intraindividual variability correlated with weaker novel word learning ability in the control group. The speed-accuracy trade-off pattern occurred in two aphasic patients: one with overly cautious and one with overly hasty response behavior. According to this study, examining reaction times and possibly speed-accuracy trade-offs with, for example, a specific learning test would help to recognize the patients with maladaptive timing patterns. This would benefit the patient, as optimizing the speed-accuracy trade-offs has been studied to improve item naming, the effect even being transferred to connected speech. The relationship of speed-accuracy trade-offs with novel word learning requires further studying, taking into consideration factors behind reaction times and word learning ability.

Aphasia is a linguistic disorder that occurs after language acquisition and can lead to difficulties with expressive and receptive language. Aphasia is most often caused by a stroke. The inability to retrieve words, also known as anomia, is the most common symptom of aphasia and it is most often assessed with object-naming tasks. It is acknowledged that in aphasia learning is fundamental aspect of the recovery process and this has led to increasing interest to study novel word learning ability in aphasia. So far, word learning ability in people with aphasia has been studied mainly in chronic stage. The aim of this study was to examine novel word learning ability in subacute aphasia using recognition and naming task and to investigate the possible connection between recognition and naming ability. Additionally, the possible connection between naming of familiar objects and new objects was investigated. The sample of this study was part of the Opi sanoja research project and included ten adults with subacute aphasia (maximum 3 months post-stroke). Participants completed a learning task on computer and their aim was to learn six pseudoword-picture pairings. The novel word learning ability of the participants was assessed using recognition and confrontation naming task. The tasks were administered on two different occasions one week apart from each other. The ability to name familiar objects was assessed using Boston Naming Test. Participants’ ability to name novel objects wasn’t correlated with their ability to recognize the novel objects. Furthermore, participants’ ability to name familiar objects didn’t correlate with the ability to name novel objects. However, there was considerable inter-individual variability in learning performance. Some of the participants were able to recognize novel objects at the statistically significant level immediately after the learning task and one week later. However, some of the participant’s couldn’t recognize the objects either immediately after the learning task or one week later. At the group level participants’ performance on the novel object naming task was poor and was virtually at floor. However, consideration of individual participant results revealed that one of the participants was able to name some of the novel objects correctly. Based on the results, people in subacute aphasia recognize novel targets better than name them. The results are in line with previous studies that have investigated ability to learn new words in chronic aphasia and support the initial evidence that people with subacute aphasia can learn novel words. The findings of this study also provide preliminary understanding of the ability to name novel objects in subacute aphasia.

Background. Aphasia refers to a disability in the processing of linguistic information. It is most typically due to a stroke. Aphasia impairs a person's ability to understand, produce and use language. Recovery from aphasia is generally divided into three main stages: acute, subacute and chronic. So far, the ability to learn new words in aphasia has only been studied in chronic aphasia. Learning new words is a complex process. In natural language learning, the relationship between a word and its meaning is often not unambiguous, but the words and their possible meanings are numerous, and the connections are complex. The learning of new words can take place by hearing or by reading. The prerequisite for rehabilitation from aphasia is the ability to learn new things, but aphasia research typically uses familiar and everyday words. However, the use of familiar words in research makes it difficult to interpret the results. In order to assess whether a person with aphasia is able to learn new vocabulary, research must be done on a vocabulary that was not available to the person before aphasia. Objectives. The aim of this thesis is to determine, whether people with subacute aphasia can learn novel vocabulary in a situation that imitates natural language learning. This thesis also investigates how the learning ability of people with aphasia compares to the learning ability of healthy matched controls in the same task and how the matched controls learn compared to healthy young adults. Methods. The participants of the study consisted of three groups: young controls, matched controls and aphasic participants. The aphasic participants were examined at HUS Hospital District in Laakso Hospital in Helsinki and in Hyvinkää Hospital. The word learning task consisted of six 3-syllable nonwords that were practiced using a computer program. The task was to combine a spoken and written novel word with the correct novel image, choosing from two different images. Results and conclusions. Learning novel words is possible in subacute aphasia. However, there was great variability in the ability to learn between the aphasic participants. Some learned the words well, others learned some words, and some did not seem to learn the words at all. In addition, some of aphasic participants in the subacute stage were able to maintain the vocabulary they learned for at least a week after learning. Some of the aphasic participants learned the words on par with matched controls but for some the learning was significantly weaker. Both young adults and matched controls performed well on the learning task, but young adults learn the words faster than matched controls.