Purpose: Decision making involves multiple cognitive and linguistic processes. The extent to which these processes are involved depends, in part, on the conditions under which decision making is assessed. Because people with aphasia (PWA) have impaired language abilities and may also present with cognitive deficits, they may have difficulty during…

It is uncontroversial in psychological research that different schedules of practice, which govern the distribution of practice over time, can promote radically different outcomes in terms of gains in performance and durability of learning. In contrast, in speech-language treatment research, there is a critical need for well-controlled studies…

Speech-language pathologists serving individuals with aphasia must make many decisions regarding assessment and intervention practices to support comprehension and expression of language. Each of these decisions can influence the effectiveness of therapy and long-term functional outcomes for individuals with aphasia. One factor that must be…

Those caring for someone diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder are at risk of experiencing depression and anxiety. However, limited research has examined risk and predictive factors associated with internalizing symptomatology in caregivers from ethnic and culturally diverse backgrounds. We aimed to identify predictive factors for…

Purpose: In this study, we investigated the agreement between the 175-item Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT; Roach, Schwartz, Martin, Grewal, & Brecher, 1996) and a 30-item computer adaptive PNT (PNT-CAT; Fergadiotis, Kellough, & Hula, 2015; Hula, Kellough, & Fergadiotis, 2015) created using item response theory (IRT) methods. Method: The…

Purpose: In single-case treatment studies, researchers may compare client performance during a baseline, nontreatment phase(s) to client performance during intervention phases. Autocorrelation in the data series gathered during such studies increases the likelihood that analysts will detect or fail to detect meaningful differences between baseline…

Purpose: The ultimate goal of anomia treatment should be to achieve gains in exemplars trained in the therapy session, as well as generalization to untrained exemplars and contexts. The purpose of this study was to test the efficacy of phonomotor treatment, a treatment focusing on enhancement of phonological sequence knowledge, against semantic…

Hand gestures and body movements are a frequent complement to spoken human language. They often communicate ancillary information to the verbal message, and are theorized to aid the cognitive load associated with several tasks (e.g., lexical retrieval & short term memory). However, the current literature specifically focuses on the…

Purpose: Insights from linguistic variation research illustrate a linguistically diverse population, in which even speakers who can be classified as speaking a "mainstream" variety have grammatical knowledge of vernacular or "nonmainstream" features. However, there is a gap in our knowledge regarding how vernacular features are…

Background: Intervention studies aimed to improve the written production of single words by persons with aphasia have yielded promising results and there is growing interest in interventions targeting text writing. The development of technical writing aids offers opportunities for persons with aphasia, and studies have shown that using them can…

Purpose: Meaningful changes in picture naming responses may be obscured when measuring accuracy instead of quality. A statistic that incorporates information about the severity and nature of impairments may be more sensitive to the effects of treatment. Method: We analyzed data from repeated administrations of a naming test to 72 participants with…

Background: Stroke profoundly affects quality of life (QOL), including loss of employment, reduced social activity, shrinking social networks and low mood. Dysgraphia (impaired writing) is a common symptom of aphasia yet is rarely targeted in rehabilitation. Recent technological advances might challenge this, since much communication is now…

Background: Aphasia therapy is an effective approach to improve language function in chronic aphasia. However, it remains unclear what prognostic factors facilitate therapy response at the individual level. Here, we utilized data from the POLAR (Predicting Outcomes of Language Rehabilitation in Aphasia) trial to (a) determine therapy-induced…

Background: An individual's ability to make autonomous decisions is fundamental to self-determination. The presence of neurological pathology, for example, aphasia, and its associated difficulties with language and/or cognition, may affect an individual's capacity to make decisions, or their ability to reveal their capacity to make decisions.…

Purpose: Arousal and cognitive effort are relevant yet often overlooked components of attention during language processing. Pupillometry can be used to provide a psychophysiological index of arousal and cognitive effort. Given that much is unknown regarding the relationship between cognition and language deficits seen in people with aphasia (PWA),…