Behavioural Neurology - Volume 25, issue 3

Authors: Weekes, Brendan Stuart

Article Type: Research Article

Keywords: Models of reading, Spelling, Biscript reading, Bilingualism

DOI: 10.3233/BEN-2012-119000

Citation: Behavioural Neurology, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 159-163, 2012

Authors: Crepaldi, Davide | Che, Wei-Chun | Su, I.-Fan | Luzzatti, Claudio

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Lexical-semantic variables (such as word frequency, imageability and age of acquisition) have been studied extensively in neuropsychology to address the structure of the word production system. The evidence available on this issue is still rather controversial, mainly because of the very complex interrelations between lexical-semantic variables. Moreover, it is not clear whether the results obtained in Indo-European languages also hold in languages with a completely different structure and script, such as Chinese. The …objective of the present study is to investigate this specific issue by studying the effect of word frequency, imageability, age of acquisition, visual complexity of the stimuli, grammatical class and morphological structure in word and picture naming in Chinese. The effect of these variables on naming and reading accuracy of healthy and brain-damaged individuals is evaluated using mixed-effect models, a statistical technique that allows to model both fixed and random effects; this feature substantially enhances the statistical power of the technique, so that several variables – and their complex interrelations – can be handled effectively in a unique analysis. We found that grammatical class interacts consistently across tasks with morphological structure: all participants, both healthy and brain-damaged, found simple nouns significantly easier to read and name than complex nouns, whereas simple and complex verbs were of comparable difficulty. We also found that imageability was a strong predictor in picture naming, but not in word naming, whereas the contrary held true for age of acquisition. These results are taken to indicate the existence of a morphological level of processing in the Chinese word production system, and that reading aloud may occur along a non-semantic route (either lexical or sub-lexical) in this language. Show more

Keywords: Chinese, aphasia, word naming, picture naming, imageability, age of acquisition, mixed-effect model, verbs, nouns

DOI: 10.3233/BEN-2012-119002

Citation: Behavioural Neurology, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 165-184, 2012

Authors: Druks, Judit | Aydelott, Jennifer | Genethliou, Marios | Jacobs, Helen | Weekes, Brendan

Article Type: Research Article

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. Show more

Keywords: Models of reading, non-fluent progressive aphasia, bilingualism

DOI: 10.3233/BEN-2012-119003

Citation: Behavioural Neurology, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 185-191, 2012

Authors: Friedmann, Naama | Haddad-Hanna, Manar

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: This study reports the reading of 11 Arabic-speaking individuals with letter position dyslexia (LPD), and the effect of letter form on their reading errors. LPD is a peripheral dyslexia caused by a selective deficit to letter position encoding in the orthographic-visual analyzer, which results in migration of letters within words, primarily of middle letters. The Arabic orthography is especially interesting for the study of LPD because Arabic letters have different forms in different positions in the …word. As a result, some letter position errors require letter form change. We compared the rate of letter migrations that change letter form with migrations that do not change letter form in 10 Arabic-speaking individuals with developmental LPD, and one bilingual Arabic and Hebrew-speaking individual with acquired LPD. The results indicated that the participants made 40% letter position errors in migratable words when the resulting word included the letters in the same form, whereas migrations that changed letter form almost never occurred. The error rate of the Arabic-Hebrew bilingual reader was smaller in Arabic than in Hebrew. However, when only words in which migrations do not change letter form were counted, the rate was similar in Arabic and Hebrew. Hence, whereas orthographies with multiple letter forms for each letter might seem more difficult in some respects, these orthographies are in fact easier to read in some forms of dyslexia. Thus, the diagnosis of LPD in Arabic should consider the effect of letter forms on migration errors, and use only migratable words that do not require letter-form change. The theoretical implications for the reading model are that letter form (of the position-dependent type found in Arabic) is part of the information encoded in the abstract letter identity, and thus affects further word recognition processes, and that there might be a pre-lexical graphemic buffer in which the checking of orthographic well-formedness takes place. Show more

Keywords: Dyslexia, letter position dyslexia, Arabic, abstract letter identity, developmental dyslexia

DOI: 10.3233/BEN-2012-119004

Citation: Behavioural Neurology, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 193-203, 2012

Authors: Hricová, Marianna | Weekes, Brendan Stuart

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The first reports of phonological, surface and deep dyslexia come from orthographies containing quasi-regular mappings between orthography and phonology including English and French. Slovakian is a language with a relatively transparent orthography and hence a mostly regular script. The aim of this study was to investigate impaired oral reading in Slovakian. A novel diagnostic procedure was devised to determine whether disorders of Slovakian reading resemble characteristics in other languages. Slovakian speaking aphasics …showed symptoms similar to phonological dyslexia and deep dyslexia in English and French, but there was no evidence of surface dyslexia. The findings are discussed in terms of the orthographic depth hypothesis. Show more

Keywords: Acquired dyslexia, phonological dyslexia, surface dyslexia, deep dyslexia, dyslexia in the Slovak language, orthographic transparency, Slovak orthography

DOI: 10.3233/BEN-2012-119005

Citation: Behavioural Neurology, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 205-213, 2012

Authors: Kambanaros, Maria | Messinis, Lambros | Anyfantis, Emmanouil

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: We report the spoken and written naming of a bilingual speaker with aphasia in two languages that differ in morphological complexity, orthographic transparency and script Greek and English. AA presented with difficulties in spoken picture naming together with preserved written picture naming for action words in Greek. In English, AA showed similar performance across both tasks for action and object words, i.e. difficulties retrieving action and object names for both spoken and written naming. Our findings …support the hypothesis that cognitive processes used for spoken and written naming are independent components of the language system and can be selectively impaired after brain injury. In the case of bilingual speakers, such processes impact on both languages. We conclude grammatical category is an organizing principle in bilingual dysgraphia. Show more

Keywords: Lexical access, dysgraphia, Orthographic Autonomy Hypothesis (OAH), Greek

DOI: 10.3233/BEN-2012-119006

Citation: Behavioural Neurology, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 215-222, 2012

Authors: Kozintseva, Elena | Skvortsov, Anatoly | Ulicheva, Anastasia | Vlasova (Zaykova), Anna

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Acquired disorders of writing in the Russian language have been reported for more than a century. The study of these disorders reflects the history of Russian neuropsychology and is dominated by the syndrome approach most notably by the writings of Luria. Indeed, our understanding of acquired dysgraphia in Russian speakers is conceptualized according to the classical approach in Modern Russia. In this review, we describe the classical approach and compare it to the cognitive neuropsychological models …of writing disorders that are developed to explain dysgraphia in English and in other Western European languages. We argue that the basic theoretical assumptions of the two approaches – cognitive and classical or syndrome approach – share similarities. It is therefore proposed that identification of acquired cases of dysgraphia in Russian could potentially benefit from taking the cognitive neuropsychological perspective. We also conclude that adopting elements of the syndrome approach would substantially enrich the understanding of acquired dysgraphia since these offer an insight into processes not described in the cognitive neuropsychological approach. Show more

Keywords: Syndrome approach, cognitive approach, dysgraphia, Russian, Luria, writing

DOI: 10.3233/BEN-2012-119010

Citation: Behavioural Neurology, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 223-232, 2012

Authors: Menichelli, Alina | Machetta, Francesca | Zadini, Antonella | Semenza, Carlo

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The case is reported of a patient (PS) who, following acute encephalitis with residual occipito-temporal damage, showed a selective deficit in writing cursive letters in isolation, but no difficulty to write cursive-case words and non-words. Notably, he was able to recognize the same allographs he could not write and to produce both single letters and words in print. In addition to this selective single letter writing difficulty, the patient demonstrated an inability to correctly perform a …series of imagery tasks for cursive letters. PS's performance may indicate that single letter production requires explicit imagery. Explicit imagery may not be required, instead, when letters have to be produced in the context of a word: letter production in this case may rely on implicit retrieval of well learned scripts in a procedural way. Show more

Keywords: Allographic agraphia, word/letter dissociation, letter production, letter font, letter case

DOI: 10.3233/BEN-2012-119008

Citation: Behavioural Neurology, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 233-244, 2012

Authors: Mondini, Sara | Arcara, Giorgio | Semenza, Carlo

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: Reading and writing Noun-Noun compound nouns was investigated in two Italian aphasic patients: one with phonological dyslexia and the other with phonological dysgraphia. The patients were required to read, write and repeat a list of Noun-Noun compounds and length-matched non-compound nouns. The dyslexic patient RF read compounds better than non-compounds, and his repetition was flawless for both categories. The dysgraphic patient DA wrote non-compounds better than compounds because of a deficit in keeping separate entries at …the lemma level. Differential performance when processing compounds and non-compounds is the result of a deficit in different components within the mental lexicon architecture. Show more

Keywords: Compound nouns, phonological dyslexia, phonological dysgraphia, graphemic buffer

DOI: 10.3233/BEN-2012-119007

Citation: Behavioural Neurology, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 245-253, 2012

Authors: Senaha, Mirna Lie Hosogi | de Mattos Pimenta Parente, Maria Alice

Article Type: Research Article

Abstract: The Japanese language is represented by two different codes: syllabic and logographic while Portuguese employs an alphabetic writing system. Studies on bilingual Portuguese-Japanese individuals with acquired dyslexia therefore allow an investigation of the interaction between reading strategies and characteristics of three different writing codes. The aim of this study was to examine the differential impact of an acquired brain lesion on the reading of the logographic, syllabic and alphabetic writing systems of a bilingual …Portuguese-Japanese aphasic patient (PF). Results showed impaired reading in the logographic system and when reading irregularly spelled Portuguese words but no effects on reading regular words and nonwords in syllabic and alphabetic writing systems. These dissociations are interpreted according to a multi-route cognitive model of reading assuming selective damage in the lexical route can result in acquired dyslexia across at least three different writing codes. Show more

Keywords: Acquired dyslexia, written systems, surface dyslexia, kanji-kana, lexical reading, bilingualism, dissociation

DOI: 10.3233/BEN-2012-119001

Citation: Behavioural Neurology, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 255-272, 2012