Visual geneogram work and change: a single case study

Visual geneogram work with an individual and the subsequent changes are described. These include changes in self-perspective, family relationships and the visual features of a sequence of geneograms drawn by the individual. The paper is a single case study. Theoretical and clinical issues relevant to the nature of visual geneogram work are discussed.     

Semantic access processing in a supra-modal deficit: a single case study

The case is presented of a semantic dementia patient, who shows a deficit selective for (i) conceptual class (living things), (ii) attribute processing (visual features) and affecting (iii) input-output modalities at the same processing stage (matching stored representation to attributes). The first experimental part aims at exploring the specific stage/process at which semantic knowledge breaks down through multi-modality tasks, devised to tap different levels within the semantic elaboration flow. The second focuses on the differences between category vs. attribute knowledge across various modalities. The core nature of the patient's deficit is investigated through a close comparison of her damage to a specific processing stage across modalities in the light of her class and attribute-specific impairment. The complex pattern of findings is discussed according to current theoretical accounts of semantic memory organization. Finally, the relevance of the adoption of a broad perspective when dealing with semantic memory impairments is highlighted.     

Formal paraphasias: A single case study

A case study is reported of an aphasic patient, RB, who showed frequent form-related whole-word substitutions in oral naming, writing to dictation, and reading aloud. In both written language tasks, the abstractness of the targets influenced the number of formal errors. In oral naming, a high proportion of formal paraphasias was related to the intended words in both form and meaning. A comparison between targets and formal paraphasias indicated a high agreement both in word class, number of syllables, stress pattern, and in basic (stressed) vowels. The agreement in consonants (including word-initial consonants), however, was low. It is argued that RB's formal substitutions are not caused solely by errors of lexical selection but that semantic, lexical, and segmental factors contribute to the error outcome.     

Towards a unitary account of access dysphasia: A single case study

Abstract

We report the case of a patient, H.E.C., with a profound verbal comprehension impairment. His comprehension impairment involved both common names (animal and inanimate items) and proper names. Within the proper name category, his comprehension of country and famous peoples' names was better than his comprehension of common forenames. By using matching to sample techniques, H.E.C.'s impairment was found to be affected by presentation rate and by semantic relatedness, but not by word frequency. An analysis of his responses showed marked inconsistency and serial position effects (i.e. a decrement of performance on subsequent presentations of the same items). H.E.C.'s comprehension deficit was interpreted in terms of an “access” impairment within the word-meaning system. A unitary account of this impairment in terms of a deficit that delays the return, following activation, of the set of representations underlying a word, to a “ready state” is proposed.     

The future case: An alternative to single case study

Traditional single case studies have tended to focus on the individual's past and/or present with minimal reference to one's future. This allows for an incomplete assessment of the reality in which humans participate as organisms-in-process. The future case is advanced as a complement to traditional single case designs. Emphasis is upon imaginative and creative involvement with one's future in the clinical setting. The rationale and concrete outline for this future invention process reflect how individuals can move beyond restricting conditions to higher levels of emotional growth and satisfaction.     

Lower income Hindu women's attitude towards abortion: a case study in urban India

After a brief discussion of Hindu views on abortion as reflected in classical Hindu philosophical and religious texts, this article examines, from an interdisciplinary perspective, current social attitudes towards abortion among lower-income Hindu women in Calcutta and attempts to identify the reasons for the striking disparity between traditional and modern Hindu views. Does Hindu dharma have the regulatory power it wielded in the past? What accounts for the changing face of mores in urban centers like Calcutta? These and related issues are the focus of this essay.     

Attitude of the two religious groups towards family planning

40 Muslim and 50 Hindu male high school teachers, working in the interior parts of the districts of Gaya and Shahabad in India, filled out questionnaires designed to determine attitudes toward family planning. All were married and had more than 1 child. They were ages 26-48. The Hindus were found to have significantly more favorable (p less than .05) attitudes toward family planning than the Muslims. If the statistics reflect reality, it is no wonder the birth rate among Muslims is much higher in India. Both Muslim and Hindu teachers were grouped according to age (below 35 years or above 35 years). While the younger Hindus had significantly more favorable (p less than .05) attitudes toward family planning than the older Hindus, the younger Muslims had only slightly more favorable attitudes (nonsignificant) toward family planning than the older Muslims.     

The influence of the media on practice in mental health: a bricolage of a single case study

This paper has its genesis in the convergence of two individuals’ interests – one with a long-standing interest in representations of mental health and one with an interest in the use of bricolage as a research approach. These interests converged around the ways in which mental health care practitioners might react to and subsequently reflect on images of mental health they came across in the media. A bricolage was developed relating to newspaper coverage of a homicide carried out by someone with a mental health problem. The bricolage draws on the assumption that practitioners will have immediate reactions to material they come across, take a more considered overview of this material, and subsequently attempt to contextualize this reflection in terms of academic literature. The bricolage as presented mirrors this process for an experienced practitioner. Suggestions are made concerning the use of newspaper reports on mental health, to enable both novice and experienced practitioners to gain vicarious experience through reflection on these reports.     

A computational account of deep dysphasia: evidence from a single case study.

We present a case study of a patient, NC, who demonstrates the defining characteristics of deep dysphasia including semantic errors in repetition and an inability to repeat nonwords. In addition, NC's single word repetition and lexical decision performances are influenced by the imageability of the word input. NC also demonstrates a severely restricted phonological short-term memory (one digit, one word). Although his phonological discrimination is good in a minimal pairs judgment task, it becomes impaired when a delay is imposed or rehearsal is prevented between presentation of each member of a pair. NC's output is fluent but contains many formal paraphasias and neologisms. NC's total language profile is evaluated within the framework of Dell's (1986) interactive spreading activation model of language production. Adapting this output model to input processes, we account for all of NC's deep dysphasic symptoms as well as his pattern of production in a way that is more parsimonious than other attempts to model this disorder. In particular, we suggest that the semantic and formal paraphasias in naming and repetition result from a pathological increase in the rate of decay of primed nodes in the semantic-lexical-phonological network. This rapid decay increases the probability that phonologically and/or semantically related lexical nodes primed by top-down and bottom-up feedback during the operation of lexical activation and retrieval will be activated and selected instead of the lexical target. The advantages of using this model to account for aphasic symptoms and the implications for other lexical theories are discussed.     

Honouring our great grandparents: towards a rhetorical analysis of family therapy

This paper argues that family therapy is an inherently and inescapably rhetorical activity, although its connections with rhetoric have remained largely ignored and the implications for practice unexplored. An uncritical acceptance of a range of postmodern ideas has led many family therapists to ignore the power of their therapeutic rhetoric. The paper offers rhetorical analysis as a tool to help family therapists to reflect on the rhetorical power of their practice and thereby to exercise this power more responsibly.     

The fractionation of arithmetical skills: A single case study

A single case study of a patient with a selective impairment of arithmetical calculation is reported. DRC became severely acalculic after sustaining a left parietal intra-cerebral haematoma. His numeracy skills were documented as fully as possible. It was found that his knowledge of the significance of individual numbers and his concept of quantity appeared to be intact, but simple addition, subtraction and multiplication were all performed laboriously and inaccurately and his performance was inconsistent from trial to trial. Further it was shown that it was his knowledge of arithmetical facts not his knowledge of arithmetical operations which was impaired. The findings are discussed in relation to models of arithmetical calculation and it is concluded that for DRC there was a deficit in accessing one category of verbal semantic knowledge systems, namely arithmetical facts.     

The contribution of the right cerebral hemisphere to the recovery from aphasia: a single longitudinal case study

We examined the role of the right cerebral hemisphere in the recovery from aphasia of HJ, a 50-year-old right-handed and unilingual man who suffered from severe aphasia caused by an extensive left hemisphere (LH) lesion. He was followed-up over 10 months at 4-month intervals, with a lateralized lexical decision task (LDT), an attentional task, and a language battery. Testing started when HJ was 2 months poststroke. In the LDT, words were presented to central vision or lateralized to the left or right visual hemifield. At each test period, we examined the effect of the degree of imageability (high vs. low), and the grammatical class (noun vs. verb) of the targets on HJ's response times and error rates, with left visual field, right visual field, and central vision presentations. The results of the experiment showed that the pattern obtained with the LDT could not be accounted for by fluctuations in attention. There was an interaction of grammatical class with degree of imageability with left visual field displays only. The right hemisphere (RH) was faster with high-imageability words than with low-imageability words, regardless of their grammatical class. There was also an overall RH advantage on response times at 2 and 6 months after onset. This RH predominance coincided with a major recovery of language comprehension and the observation of semantic paralexias, while no major change in language expression was observed at that point. Ten months after onset, the pattern of lateralization changed, and response times for the LDT with either presentation site were equivalent. This LH improvement coincided with some recovery of language expression at the single-word level. The results of this study suggest that, in cases of severe aphasia caused by extensive LH lesions, the RH may play an important role in the recovery process. Furthermore, these results show that the contribution of the two cerebral hemispheres to recovery may vary overtime and affect specific aspects of language.     

Style of relating as pathogenic relating: A family case study

Can excessive use of a particular set of values by parents produce symptoms of mental illness in their children? The author thinks it can. A style of relating in which parents impersonalize their relationship with their children can be a component of pathogenic relating which leads to an outbreak of psychiatric illness. Emotional intimacy is the nature of the parent-child relationship, and any attempt to impersonalize it on the part of parents will be met with resistance by the children. Sometimes the resistance becomes chaotic and the result is a mental illness. The children are at greater risk for mental illness than the parents because theirs is the more dependent role in the relationship.