The Effects of Environmental Sound Cues and Degraded Verbal Cues on Word-Retrieval by Aphasics
Deck, John William
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/70679
Description
Title
The Effects of Environmental Sound Cues and Degraded Verbal Cues on Word-Retrieval by Aphasics
Author(s)
Deck, John William
Issue Date
1985
Department of Study
Speech and Hearing Science
Discipline
Speech and Hearing Science
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Health Sciences, Speech Pathology
Abstract
Five groups of subjects with 15 adult male veterans in each group who had hearing sensitivity near normal limits were presented sound stimuli through headphones at levels of equal intensity and duration, and asked to name the sound they heard. The groups of subjects were Broca's aphasics, anomic aphasics, Wernicke's aphasics, brain-damaged nonaphasics and normal control subjects. Two test conditions were conducted where environmental sounds were presented as cues and degraded-verbal cues were presented when a subject was unable to recall the name of a sound. Up to 3 cues were presented at established intervals for each sound stimulus. Environmental sound cues represented specific life experiences and degraded verbal cues were the spoken name of a stimulus filtered at the levels 600 Hz, 1200 Hz and 2400 Hz. Environmental sound cues were presented in an order of most recognizable to least recognizable and degraded verbal cues were presented in an order of most degraded to least degraded.
Latency of responses was significantly less for the normal control subjects as compared to the brain-damaged nonaphasics and aphasics groups. Environmental sounds as cues were used significantly more effectively by the normal control subjects and brain-damaged nonaphasics than by the three aphasic groups. Wernicke's aphasics performed the poorest.
Aphasic groups achieved more accurate recall when degraded verbal cues were used than when environmental sound cues were used. Accuracy levels were not significantly different between normal subjects, brain-damaged nonaphasics and anomic aphasics; brain-damaged nonaphasics, anomic and Broca's aphasics; anomic and Broca's aphasics; and Broca's and Wernicke's aphasics.
A weighted scoring system used in this study which combined the dimensions of accuracy and latency of responses was found to distinguish significantly between the performance of all subject groups except the anomic and Broca's aphasics in the environmental sounds as cues condition.
With these findings in mind, Clinicians might be encouraged to rely more on verbal than nonverbal auditory cues for stimulus presentation during auditory activities to facilitate word-recall, and to not only judge accuracy of responses but latency of responses as an important dimension of progress.
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