Pattern of language impairment is different in Alzheimer's disease and multi-infarct dementia.

Language impairment was assessed in 33 patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), in 52 patients with multi-infarct dementia (MID), and in 86 elderly community residents. The investigation included the D-Test Battery based on the Luria's Neuropsychological Investigation for all subjects. An extended battery of Luria's language items was used for 30 demented patients (11 AD and 19 MID patients) and 86 controls. The changes in language functions in normal subjects could be clearly differentiated from those seen in patients with mild dementia. The patients with different degrees of dementia differed also significantly from each other in regard to language impairment. Moreover, patients with AD and MID appeared to have different patterns of language impairment although the severity of dementia and the levels of orientation, mnestic, and conceptual functions were equal. AD was associated especially with a defect in understanding of grammatical structures and MID with disorders in recognition of words, naming, and repetition. The differential diagnostic capacity of 23 selected language items proved to be 97% between AD, MID, and control subjects. The results indicate that the examination of language functions is valuable in the differential diagnosis of dementia.     

Aphasia in left-handers. Comparison of aphasia profiles and language recovery in non-right-handed and matched right-handed patients.

The present retrospective analysis reports two studies. In Study 1, clinical aspects of aphasia are compared in right-handed (RH) and non-right-handed (NRH) patients; in Study 2, recovery from aphasia is compared in RH and NRH aphasic patients with a minimum of 5 months of daily language rehabilitation. From a continuous series of 1200 brain-damaged subjects, 24 NRH patients with a vascular lesion documented by computerized tomography were selected. In 19 cases the lesion was in the left hemisphere and in 5 cases in the right hemisphere. For 14 NRH patients, a RH subject with similar lesion, matched for age, education, length of illness, etiology (ischemic vs. hemorrhagic), and, when possible, sex was found. Presence and type of aphasia were compared in the two patients of the same pair and were found similar except for Pair 14; the RH subject had global aphasia and the NRH had conduction-like aphasia. Fifteen NRH patients were rehabilitated and reexamined at least 5 months after the first examination. Recovery of the 12 patients with a left-hemisphere lesion was compared with recovery of a group of RH subjects and no significant differences were found. Recovery of the three patients with right-hemisphere lesions is described. It is concluded that differences in type of aphasia and recovery between RHs and NRHs have been overemphasized in the past and must be reconsidered.     

Changes in information as a function of a culturally appropriate smoking cessation community intervention for Hispanics

Tested a 7-month, media-based, community intervention among Hispanics in San Francisco designed to change levels of information on the damaging effects of cigarette smoking and on the availability of culturally appropriate cessation services. Three community-wide surveys of Hispanics were conducted with independent random samples, two as baselines (n = 1,660 and 2,053) and one postintervention (n = 1,965). Results showed that changes in the level of awareness of cessation services had taken place after implementation of the intervention. Furthermore, those changes took place primarily among the less acculturated Spanish-speaking Hispanics who were the target of the intervention. The changes in information reported here demonstrate that a culturally appropriate information dissemination campaign that utilizes multiple channels can produce changes in a community's level of information even when the campaign is implemented for a relatively short period.     

The predictive validity of teacher nominations: A five-year followup of at-risk youth

The purpose of this study was to examine the predictive validity of a teacher nomination procedure for identifying at- risk children. Two hundred and twenty-five children were nominated by their teachers as well- adjusted (n= 75), socially withdrawn (n=76), or socially aggressive (n=74) during the fourth grade. Five years later, 198 of these children (88%) were located and their adjustment evaluated. Significant differences among the nominated children were found on a variety of measures, including academic grades, sociometric status, and social behavior. In addition, differences in school dropout and delinquent offenses were noted. Results are discussed in terms of the validity of teacher nomination procedures and their utility in identifying at- risk youth.     

Changing contexts and the field of community psychology

Conclusion The legacy of the Swampscott conference 25 years ago is palpable. The scientific accomplishments have been substantial. The four agendas I have presented for the future development of the field depend upon psychologists as individuals and psychologists as participants in our departments, colleges, universities, professional societies, and peer review panels to reduce the constraints that limit the definition and study of psychological phenomena in community settings (Schneider, 1990). As these constraints are addressed, new social norms can be established to expand and diversify the research process. There are some explicit positive side effects that can occur. A new working social structure can be created for how universities and communities can be resources for each other.The four topics I have presented are agendas for keeping at the task of generating active and expanding scientific traditions. These topics when addressed in the context of collaboration with other disciplines and citizens can develop an empirical base of shared wisdom about how to carry out community psychology research. In these ways the benefits of community psychology research can become more empowering for the public and more and more systemic for the scholar.These comments were presented as an Invited Address at the 2nd annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, June 8, 1990, Dallas, Texas.The following persons took time to read and comment on earlier drafts of these comments. I have benefited very much from their appraisals. Eileen Altman, Daniel Cervone, Seeley Chandler-Kelly, Nancy Dassoff, Penny Foster-Fishman, Steve Goldston, Peter Graves, Kenneth Heller, Robert E. Hess, David Henry, Ira Iscoe, Chris Keys, Benjamin Kleinmuntz, Ed Lichtenstein, Philip Mann, Kyoung Oh, Julian Rappaport, Dan Romer, Lonnie R. Snowden, Joseph P. Stokes, Edison J. Trickett, Abe Wandersman, and Marc Alan Zimmerman.     

Similarity neighborhoods of spoken two-syllable words: retroactive effects on multiple activation

This research examines the recognition of two-syllable spoken words and the means by which the auditory word recognition process deals with ambiguous stimulus information. The experiments reported here investigate the influence of individual syllables within two-syllable words on the recognition of each other. Specifically, perceptual identification of two-syllable words comprised of two monosyllabic words (spondees) was examined. Individual syllables within a spondee were characterized as either "easy" or "hard" depending on the syllable's neighborhood characteristics; an easy syllable was defined as a high-frequency word in a sparse neighborhood of low-frequency words, and a hard syllable as a low-frequency word in a high-density, high-frequency neighborhood. In Experiment 1, stimuli were created by splicing together recordings of the component syllables of the spondee, thus equating for syllable stress. Additional experiments tested the perceptual identification of naturally produced spondees, spliced nonwords, and monosyllables alone. Neighborhood structure had a strong effect on identification in all experiments. In addition, identification performance for spondees with a hard-easy syllable pattern was higher than for spondees with an easy-hard syllable pattern, indicating a primarily retroactive pattern of influence in spoken word recognition. Results strongly suggest that word recognition involves multiple activation and delayed commitment, thus ensuring accurate and efficient recognition.     

A componential analysis of pacemaker-counter timing systems

Why does counting improve the accuracy of temporal judgments? Killeen and Weiss (1987) provided a formal answer to this question, and this article provides tests of their analysis. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects responded on a telegraph key as they reproduced different intervals. Individual response rates remained constant for different target times, as predicted. The variance of reproductions was recovered from the weighted sum of the first and second moments of the component timing and counting processes. Variance in timing long intervals was mainly due to counting error, as predicted. In Experiments 3-5, unconstrained response rate was measured and subjects responded at (a) their unconstrained rate, (b) faster, or (c) slower. When subjects responded at the preferred rate, the accuracy of time judgment improved. Deviations in rates tended to increase the variability of temporal estimates. Implications for pacemaker-counter models of timing are discussed.     

The ontogeny of hemispheric specialization: some old hypotheses revisited

This paper re-examines two hypotheses on the ontogeny of hemispheric specialization that long ago fell into disfavor in neuropsychology. It is argued that these hypotheses, equipotentiality and progressive lateralization, may have suffered from misinterpretation that fostered premature acceptance of the developmental invariance view of hemispheric specialization. An alternative view is presented that incorporates both hypotheses within a neurodevelopmental context using anatomical (postmortem) and childhood aphasia data.     

Predicate-argument structure as a link between linguistic and nonlinguistic representations

We present a study wherein a severe Broca's aphasic patient was trained to learn symbols representing both pure transitive and dative predicates--predicates differing in argument structure--in a visually based artificial language (c-ViC). We found a decrease in performance when two symbols, rather than one, were used to depict these "verbs." However, this decrease in performance was more pronounced for symbols representing pure transitive verbs--those that allow only one argument structure--than for symbols representing dative verbs--those that allow two different argument structures. Also, dative "verbs" yielded better performance when they were inserted in more complex, three-argument "sentences" than when they were inserted in two-argument "sentences." The opposite pattern was found for pure transitives. These results are discussed in terms of our claim that argument structure serves as a point of connection between linguistic information and non-linguistic visual information and in terms of the possibility that argument structure entries are shaped by the form in which visual information is parsed.     

A kinematic analysis of anticipatory coarticulation in the speech of anterior aphasic subjects using electromagnetic articulography

An investigation was made into the extent and time course of anticipatory coarticulation in the speech of two normal and two anterior aphasic, German-speaking subjects. Both labial and velar coarticulation gestures were investigated. Subjects produced sentences containing target words contrasting in postconsonantal vowel rounding (e.g., [geli:ge]/[gely:gel]) and in nasality (e.g., [ti:de]/[ti:ne]). Speech kinematics were monitored by means of electromagnetic articulography. The data revealed that for correct productions, aphasic speakers' coarticulatory patterns were more highly variable than those of control subjects. These differences, however, were found chiefly for spatial displacement characteristics, while the temporal aspects of articulator movement necessary for anticipatory coarticulation appeared largely intact. Articulator mistiming did not appear to explain a small corpus of stop/nasal substitution errors produced by one of the aphasic speakers.