Affiliations: University College London, London, UK | Birkbeck College, London, UK | University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Note: [] Corresponding author: Brendan Weekes, Laboratory of
Communication Science, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. Tel.: +852
2241 5986; Fax: +852 2241 5988; E-mail: weekes@hku.hk
Abstract: We report a patient with non-fluent Primary Progressive Aphasia who
was premorbidly literate in two alphabetic scripts, Hungarian (L1) and English
(L2). Testing was performed over a two-year period to assess the impact of
progressive illness on oral reading and repetition of single words. Results
showed significant decline in oral reading in both languages, and an effect of
language status in favour of oral reading in L1. Phonological complexity was a
significant predictor of oral reading decline in both languages. Of interest,
we observed an effect of language status on task performance whereby repetition
was better in L2 than L1 but oral reading was better in L1 than L2. We conclude
that language status has an effect on repetition and oral reading abilities for
bilingual speakers with non-fluent Primary Progressive Aphasia.
Keywords: Models of reading, non-fluent progressive aphasia, bilingualism
