INS NYC 2024 Program

Poster	Poster Session 03 Program Schedule 02/15/2024 09:30 am - 10:40 am Room: Shubert Complex (Posters 1-60) Poster Session 03: Neurotrauma \| Neurovascular Final Abstract #21 Slow syntactic processing in agrammatic aphasia: Consequences for pronoun comprehension Loubna El Ouardi, University of Maryland, College Park, United States Mohamed Yeou, Chouaib Doukkali University, El Jadida, Morocco Mohammed Belahsen, Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah, University of Maryland, College Park, United States Category: Stroke/Cerebrovascular Injury and Disease (Adult) Keyword 1: agrammatism Keyword 2: aphasia Keyword 3: stroke Objective: Persons with agrammatic aphasia (PWAA) following left hemisphere brain damage are more impaired at processing closed than open class words. Within the closed class category, PWAA evince variable patterns of sparing and loss. For example, research suggests that they are impaired at the comprehension of personal pronouns, but spared at the comprehension of reflexive pronouns. While a syntactic processing deficit is evident in post-stroke PWAA, it is unclear if (and to what extent) domain general processing delays contribute to pronoun deficits. The study had three objectives: (a) to examine if Moroccan Arabic (MA)-speaking PWAA show a dissociation between the comprehension of personal and reflexive pronouns, (b) investigate if the comprehension of the two pronominal categories is modulated by the syntactic structure in which they occur, and (c) elucidate if domain general processing speed could predict pronoun comprehension speed. Participants and Methods: The study reports data from 20 MA speakers: five PWAA (M_age = 47.4, SD_age = 6.42), three persons with anomia (PWAn, M_age = 56, SD_age = 11), and 12 typical participants (TP, M_age = 50.6, SD_age = 8.46). The diagnosis of aphasia and its type were determined on the basis of the MA Bedside Western Aphasia Battery-Revised (El Ouardi et al., 2023), and the diagnosis of agrammatism was made on the basis of spontaneous speech analyses revealing characteristic features of agrammatic speech. A sentence-picture matching (SPM) task was used to examine pronoun comprehension. The task had a 2x2 design with type of pronoun (personal (PP) or reflexive (RP)) and syntactic structure (transitive sentences (TS) or exceptional case-marking constructions (ECMC)) as dependent variables. To examine domain general processing speed, a pattern comparison (PC) task was used. Results: Linear mixed-effects (LME) analyses comparing groups for pronoun comprehension indicated that PWAA and PWAn had lower accuracy and slower response time (RT) than TPs. PWAA were significantly slower than PWAn (MD = 6.578, SE = 1.924, p< .05) (MD = .267, SE = .066, p< .01). For domain general processing speed, PWAA were significantly less accurate (MD = -.200, SD = .062, p< .05) and slower than TPs (MD = 2.341, SD = .572, p<.01). No other comparisons were significant (p> .05). The results of the separate regression analyses did not support a role of PS in predicting overall accuracy or RT in the three groups. Conclusions: Pronoun comprehension is uniquely impaired in MA speakers with agrammatism. This breakdown in comprehending pronouns is modulated by syntactic complexity such that personal pronouns are worse than reflexive pronouns only in ECM constructions. These findings support processing accounts like Reuland’s (2001) primitives of binding model. Finally, the current data suggest that while slow domain general PS is a general consequence of aphasia, slow domain specific morphosyntactic PS is specific to agrammatic aphasia.

Poster

02/15/2024
09:30 am - 10:40 am
Room: Shubert Complex (Posters 1-60)

Poster Session 03: Neurotrauma | Neurovascular

Final Abstract #21

Slow syntactic processing in agrammatic aphasia: Consequences for pronoun comprehension

Loubna El Ouardi, University of Maryland, College Park, United States
Mohamed Yeou, Chouaib Doukkali University, El Jadida, Morocco
Mohammed Belahsen, Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah University, Fez, Morocco
Yasmeen Faroqi-Shah, University of Maryland, College Park, United States

Category: Stroke/Cerebrovascular Injury and Disease (Adult)

Keyword 1: agrammatism
Keyword 2: aphasia
Keyword 3: stroke

Objective:

Persons with agrammatic aphasia (PWAA) following left hemisphere brain damage are more impaired at processing closed than open class words. Within the closed class category, PWAA evince variable patterns of sparing and loss. For example, research suggests that they are impaired at the comprehension of personal pronouns, but spared at the comprehension of reflexive pronouns. While a syntactic processing deficit is evident in post-stroke PWAA, it is unclear if (and to what extent) domain general processing delays contribute to pronoun deficits. The study had three objectives: (a) to examine if Moroccan Arabic (MA)-speaking PWAA show a dissociation between the comprehension of personal and reflexive pronouns, (b) investigate if the comprehension of the two pronominal categories is modulated by the syntactic structure in which they occur, and (c) elucidate if domain general processing speed could predict pronoun comprehension speed.

Participants and Methods:

The study reports data from 20 MA speakers: five PWAA (M_age = 47.4, SD_age = 6.42), three persons with anomia (PWAn, M_age = 56, SD_age = 11), and 12 typical participants (TP, M_age = 50.6, SD_age = 8.46). The diagnosis of aphasia and its type were determined on the basis of the MA Bedside Western Aphasia Battery-Revised (El Ouardi et al., 2023), and the diagnosis of agrammatism was made on the basis of spontaneous speech analyses revealing characteristic features of agrammatic speech. A sentence-picture matching (SPM) task was used to examine pronoun comprehension. The task had a 2x2 design with type of pronoun (personal (PP) or reflexive (RP)) and syntactic structure (transitive sentences (TS) or exceptional case-marking constructions (ECMC)) as dependent variables. To examine domain general processing speed, a pattern comparison (PC) task was used.

Results:

Linear mixed-effects (LME) analyses comparing groups for pronoun comprehension indicated that PWAA and PWAn had lower accuracy and slower response time (RT) than TPs. PWAA were significantly slower than PWAn (MD = 6.578, SE = 1.924, p< .05) (MD = .267, SE = .066, p< .01). For domain general processing speed, PWAA were significantly less accurate (MD = -.200, SD = .062, p< .05) and slower than TPs (MD = 2.341, SD = .572, p<.01). No other comparisons were significant (p> .05). The results of the separate regression analyses did not support a role of PS in predicting overall accuracy or RT in the three groups.

Conclusions:

Pronoun comprehension is uniquely impaired in MA speakers with agrammatism. This breakdown in comprehending pronouns is modulated by syntactic complexity such that personal pronouns are worse than reflexive pronouns only in ECM constructions. These findings support processing accounts like Reuland’s (2001) primitives of binding model. Finally, the current data suggest that while slow domain general PS is a general consequence of aphasia, slow domain specific morphosyntactic PS is specific to agrammatic aphasia.