The Boston Naming Test: Norm data and cue utilization in a sample of normal 6- and 7-year-old children

The object-naming abilities of 83 normal children were examined using the Boston Naming Test developed by E. Kaplan, H. Goodglass, and S. Weintraub (1976, The Boston Naming Test (experimental edition), unpublished test, Veterans Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts). There is currently a lack of available norms for this instrument, especially for populations of younger children. Cue utilization in this sample is explored and attention is focused upon possible gender differences in naming performance and cue strategies. Seven summary scores derived from the test are presented in this report. Results indicate that the Boston Naming Test can discriminate within a normal population sample of young children and provides a relatively normal distribution for six of seven derived scores. Boys were found to have a significantly greater number of items correctly named but no gender differences in cue utilization were evident. A major proportion of the children in this sample of 6- and 7-year-olds used phonological cues almost exclusively, rather than semantic cues also provided. Cue use was not related to age or spontaneously given responses, and none of the children were found to be highly proficient at using both types of cues.     

Altered patterns of word associations in dementia and aphasia

The word associations of 38 demented, 17 aphasic, and 22 normal subjects were studied. Both normal and brain-injured subjects appear to make judgments about the grammatical class of the word stimulus. Certain stimulus words (especially nouns and adjectives) elicit paradigmatic responses whereas other words (especially verbs and adverbs) elicit syntagmatic responses. The mechanism producing syntagmatic responses seems relatively resistant to deterioration in dementia or aphasia. However, in dementia the mechanism that generates paradigmatic responses becomes progressively less efficient (possibly due to a loss of semantic markers) and consequently more random (idiosyncratic) responses emerge. Perseverative responses, inhibited in normal subjects, are more prevalent in dementia. Anomic aphasics show a pattern of word associations similar to that of subjects with mild dementia. Broca's aphasics, while making fewer paradigmatic associations than normals, retain enough self-monitoring mechanisms so that few idiosyncratic and perseverative responses are made while more null responses occur. Wernicke's aphasics show a marked shift away from a paradigmatic word association strategy, possibly due to an inability to access semantic markers or a true loss of these markers. Metalinguistic deficits (i.e., a failure to adopt an appropriate strategy) may also contribute to this shift away from paradigmatic associations. Furthermore, a disruption of self-monitoring mechanisms in Wernicke's aphasia leads to an increase in perseverative and idiosyncratic responses.     

Gerstmann syndrome without aphasia: a longitudinal study

A case of "pure" and complete Gerstmann syndrome resulting from a focal vascular lesion in the posterior parietal area of the left hemisphere and not associated with aphasic disorder or general mental impairment is described. The initial symptom presentation of this patient supported the concept of the autonomous nature of the Gerstmann aggregate but longitudinal findings suggested that these symptoms did not in fact represent a coherent syndrome.     

Factor comparison of two Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory short forms

A sample of 315 valid Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) protocols were selected from inpatient files and scored for both the MMPI-168 and Faschingbauer Abbreviated MMPI short forms. Each short form was then factor-analyzed by a principal axis strategy with varimax rotation. The six factors extracted from each short form were then compared as to their similarity by use of the s index. This procedure showed five of the six factors in each short form as having a significant relationship of the pattern of salient variables they had in common with the complimentary factors of the other form. These data suggest that both short forms, though based on different construction methodologies, share the same underlying personality attributes. Future research is suggested to replicate these results and extend them to the full MMPI.     

Cerebral lateralization in bilinguals: Methodological issues

The literature on lateralization for language in bilinguals manifests two apparent contradictions. Some papers demonstrate differences in lateralization between bilinguals and monolinguals; others demonstrate none. In studies with exclusively bilingual subjects, some papers demonstrate differences between the lateralization for the two languages, while others demonstrate none. This paper discusses the range of methodological parameters which must be borne in mind when conducting or evaluating studies of lateralization for language in bilinguals. These include issues of subject selection, language and stimulus selection, testing procedures, data analysis, and interpretation of results.     

Aphasic adults' understanding of complex adverbial sentences

Twelve aphasics with relatively preserved auditory comprehension were tested for their understanding of four adverbial sentence types expressing the temporal order of events. The relative effects of order of mention, adverbial choice, and adverbial clause placement on subjects' comprehension were investigated. Only adverbial choice was significant with aphasics producing more errors of temporal order on after than before sentences. Subjects' error patterns were not similar to those of children acquiring language. The results are discussed with respect to the theory of lexical marking and the regression hypothesis.     

Reversal operations after brain damage

The ability to perform reversals—that is, the appreciation of the relationship between original and transformed states of knowledge—is critical to human thought processes. In order to assess whether a number of “special-purpose processors” are responsible for reversal operations, depending on the particular context in which the reversal is couched, or whether a single “core processing mechanism” subserves a critical aspect of reversal operations regardless of the specific context, patients with localized brain damage were asked to solve eight reversal problems. Visual and auditory reversals mediated by linguistic and non-linguistic symbol systems were presented. The findings demonstrate that patients with insult to the anterior portion of the right hemisphere encounter more difficulty performing reversals than patients with right posterior insult, Broca's aphasics, and fluent aphasics. This is regardless of the symbol system mediating the reversal, regardless of the modality of presentation, and regardless of the amount of available processing time. Subjects with insult to the posterior region of the left hemisphere or the right hemisphere also exhibit some difficulty solving reversal problems, although their difficulties appear modality specific. These data lend support to the claim that a core processing mechanism may play a critical role in the performance of reversal operations.     

THE EFFECTS OF A CHILD'S SELF-EVALUATION PROGRAM ON COMPLIANCE WITH PARENTAL INSTRUCTIONS IN THE HOME

A self-evaluation program was implemented with a kindergarten-aged boy in the home to increase compliance with parent instructions and decrease inappropriate verbal behavior. The self-evaluation package included the child's assessing the appropriateness of his behavior in 5-min intervals, receiving chips for positive self-evaluations, and exchanging chips for a reward following experimental sessions. In a reversal design, analyses were conducted of the effectiveness of the self-evaluation program, the requisite conditions for effective child behavior change with a self-evaluation approach, and the parent's efficiency in using the self-evaluation package. The self-evaluation procedures typically resulted in increased compliant behavior and decreased inappropriate behavior, although the effects generally weakened with time. Behavioral gains were greater and better maintained when the self-evaluation procedures were preceded by a phase of external evaluation via the mother than by baseline, suggesting that self-evaluation procedures may serve more to maintain the effects of external evaluation rather than to induce their own changes. The parent generally was efficient in implementing the procedures. Research and clinical implications for using self-evaluation procedures in a home setting are discussed.     

Central auditory processing : II. Effects of anterior temporal lobectomy

Ear dominance for the pitch of dichotically presented tonal stimuli was measured in nine patients before and after a unilateral anterior temporal lobectomy. Four subjects had a left and five had a right lobectomy. Every patient exhibited a change of ear dominance consistent with the hypothesis that a unilateral lobectomy decreases the perceptual salience of the tone presented to the ear contralateral to the lesion. Depending on the direction and magnitude of the subject's preoperative ear dominance and the side of the lobectomy, the postoperative results either increased or decreased the strength of ear dominance in a predictable fashion. The results support the idea that within each temporal lobe lie physiological mechanisms which can enhance the perceptual salience of the acoustic signal emitted by one sound source when other, concurrent, spatially separated sound sources are present. It is also argued that the same mechanism operates on speech, melodic, and tonal signals.