Purpose In this study, we sought to identify critical linguistic markers that can differentiate sentence processing of individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) from the sentence processing of normal-aging populations by manipulating sentences' linguistic complexity. We investigated whether passive sentences, as linguistically complex structures, can serve as linguistic markers that can contribute to diagnoses that distinguish MCI from normal aging. Method In total, 52 participants, including 26 adults with amnestic MCI and 26 cognitively unimpaired adults, participated in the study. All participants were native speakers of Korean. We administered the two subsets of active and passive conditions using a sentence–picture paradigm with semantically reversible sentences to both groups. Results A mixed-effects model using PROC NLMIXED demonstrated that the MCI group exhibited differentially greater difficulty in processing passive than active sentences compared to the normal-aging group. A logistic regression fitted with the PROC LOGISTIC model identified the sum of the passive sentences, with age and education effects as the best models to distinguish individuals with MCI from the normal-aging group. Conclusion Sentence comprehension deficits emerged in the MCI stage when the syntactic complexity was increased. Furthermore, a passive structure was the best predictor for efficiently distinguishing the MCI group from the normal-aging group. These results are clinically and theoretically important, given that linguistic complexity can serve as a critical behavioral marker in the detection of early symptoms associated with linguistic–cognitive decline.

Objectives: This study investigated how age differences impact the resolution of syntactic ambiguities arising through the manipulation of verb voice types and the number of noun phrases (NPs) in stimuli sets. The stimuli consisted of ambiguous sentences that we created by deleting case markers in Korean sentences. We examined resolution strategies from the viewpoint of the nominative-initial preference. Methods: A total of 105 Korean-speaking individuals participated in the study (young adults 49, old adults 56). We manipulated the number of NPs (1 vs. 2) and the verb voice types (active vs. passive) in morphologically ambiguous sentences with NPs that had no case markers. We administered a picture-selection task to examine this nominative-initial preference. Results: We found significant differences in the use of the nominative-initial strategy between the two age groups. Younger adults consistently demonstrated a preference for the nominative-initial strategy across conditions. In contrast, elderly adults presented less preference for the nominative-initial strategy than the younger adults. Conclusion: These findings indicate that elderly adults performed significantly differently in the engagement of the more frequently used syntactic template-based strategy (nominative-initial strategy) than younger adults when resolving syntactic ambiguity. The differences between the age groups in ambiguity resolution strategy may explain aging-related declines in sentence comprehension abilities.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of task demands on sentence production and their relation to working memory (WM) capacity in people with aphasia using a verb-final language. The current study manipulated the WM loads on the sentence production tasks by varying the following three factors: task type (syntactic priming vs. sentence completion), sentence type (active vs. passive), and canonicity (canonical vs. noncanonical word order). Task type and word order canonicity were related to individual differences in WM capacity in both people with aphasia and their normal controls.

ABSTRACT Background: The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effects of working-memory (WM) capacity on age-related changes in abilities to comprehend passive sentences when the word order was systematically manipulated. Methods: A total of 134 individuals participated in the study. The sentence-comprehension task consisted of the canonical and non-canonical word-order conditions. A composite measure of WM scores was used as an index of WM capacity. Results: Participants exhibited worse performance on sentences with non-canonical word order than canonical word order. The two-way interaction between age and WM was significant, suggesting that WM effects were greater than age effects on the task. Conclusions: WM capacity effects on passive-sentence comprehension increased dramatically as people aged, suggesting that those who have larger WM capacity are less vulnerable to age-related changes in sentence-comprehension abilities. WM capacity may serve as a cognitive reserve associated with sentence-comprehension abilities for elderly adults.

Objectives: Semantic feature analysis (SFA) is a treatment to improve word retrieval ability by strengthening impaired semantic networks. A large number of studies have reported the efficacy of SFA treatment on trained items, but its generalization effects on untrained items, discourse production or standardized language measures are controversial. Through the use of meta-analyses, the current study aimed to provide a systematic review of the treatment and generalization effects of SFA for individuals with aphasia. Methods: A systematic search based on 5 databases (DBPIA, RISS, EBSCOhost, ProQuest, PubMed) identified 11 studies which met the inclusion criteria. Effect sizes were calculated using Cohen's d and robust improvement rate difference for naming and discourse production. We analyzed the standardized mean difference for standardized language measures. Results: Results demonstrated medium to large effect sizes for trained items, but small effect sizes for untrained items. For discourse production, effect sizes varied from small to large depending on the types of outcome measures. SFA treatment approach contributed to improving overall language ability, but its generalization effects onto naming domains from standardized language tests seem to be limited. Conclusion: SFA treatment was effective for improving naming ability on trained items and increasing overall language ability. However, its generalization effects were relatively limited for untrained items, discourse production and standardized naming tests. These results suggest that researchers and clinicians should consider several factors which may affect the treatment efficacy of a SFA approach for individuals with aphasia.

Event Abstract Back to Event The canonicity of word order was a better predictor for syntactic priming and working memory measures than the active-passive syntactic manipulation in aphasia: Evidence from a verb-final language Bora Eom1, Jee Eun Sung1*, Soo Eun Lee1, Chaewon Park1, Seung He Paik1, Hanjae Lee1, Yena Kim1 and Yoon Ah Kim1 1 Ewha Womans University, Dept. of Communication Disorders, Republic of Korea Introduction People with aphasia demonstrated difficulties in formulating sentences (Rochon et al., 2000; Saffran et al., 1989; Thompson et al., 1993). It is critical to examine linguistic factors associated with sentence production difficulties in aphasia. The current study manipulated the canonicity of word order and syntactic structure in a verb final language. In Korean, the noun phrases can be scrambled as far as the verbs are retained in a sentence-final position. The current study investigated whether there are differential effects of the word order manipulation on sentence production when the syntactic structures (active vs. passive) varied. Passive structures are more complex to produce than active sentences in Korean due to the change of the thematic roles in noun phrases and morphological inflections in verbs. However, it is not known whether the word order effects and syntactic manipulations have differential effects on sentence production in Korean individuals with aphasia. Furthermore, the current study examined the syntactic features associated with working memory measures in aphasia. Methods A total of 15 Korean-monolingual individuals with aphasia participated in this study, ranging in age from 17 to 68 (mean= 51.87, SD=13.67). They demonstrated aphasic symptoms following a stroke. All were administered the Korean Version of Western Aphasia Battery (K-WAB) (Kim & Na, 2001). They were classified as Anomic(n=7), Broca(n=3), Conduction(n=3) and Wernicke’s(n=2) aphasia. Aphasia quotients (AQs) ranged from 38 to 93.4 (mean = 75.58, SD=16.26). The syntactic-priming task (Sung, 2015) contained two syntactic structures of active and passive sentences with either canonical or noncanonical word-order. Participants were asked to describe the target picture with semantically reversible arguments after they listened to the prime sentence that the examiner produced. Working memory measures included digit-forward/backward and word-forward/backward, and the composite measure of the four tasks was used as a single index of working memory capacity based on the one-factor solution (75.8%) from the principal component analysis. Results 1. ANOVA analyses Two-way mixed ANOVA (syntactic structure x canonicity) revealed a significant main effect for the canonicity, F(1, 14)=17.5, p<.005 with worse performance on noncanonical than canonical condition. A main effect for syntactic structure was not significant, F(1, 14)=.409, p=.533. The two-way interaction was marginally significant, F(1, 14)=3.865, p=.069 with greater canonicity effects in passive than active sentences (Figure 1). 2. Regression analyses Stepwise regression analyses were performed with working memory index as a dependent measure and each condition as predictors. Active-noncanonical and Passive-noncanonical conditions were the significant factors to account for WM capacity, F(2, 12)=23.906, p<.0001. Discussion The canonicity manipulation seems to have relatively greater impacts on a syntactic priming task than the active-passive syntactic effects in persons with aphasia using a verb-final language. Furthermore, noncanonical conditions turned out to be significant factors to account for working memory capacity. Although Korean is often regarded as a free-word order language, the noncanonical word order seems to place greater burden on sentence production and working memory capacity in Korean-speaking individuals with aphasia. Figure 1 References Kim, H., & Na, D. (2001). Korean version-The Western Aphasia Battery, K-WAB. Seoul: Paradise Welfare Foundation. Rochon, E., Saffran, E. M., Berndt, R. S., & Schwartz, M. F. (2000). Quantitative analysis of aphasic sentence production: Further development and new data. Brain and Language, 72(3), 193-218. Saffran, E. M., Berndt, R. S., & Schwartz, M. F. (1989). The quantitative analysis of agrammatic production: Procedure and data. Brain & language, 37, 440-479. Sung, J. E. (2015). Age-related changes in sentence production abilities and their relation to working-memory capacity: evidence from a verb-final language. PloS one, 10(4), e0119424. Thompson, C. K., Shapiro, L. P., & Roberts, M. M. (1993). Treatment of sentence production deficits in aphasia: A linguistic-specific approach to wh-interrogative training and generalization. Aphasiology, 7, 113-133. Keywords: canonicity, syntactic priming, Syntactic structure, SOV language, Aphasia Conference: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting, Llandudno, United Kingdom, 16 Oct - 18 Oct, 2016. Presentation Type: Poster Sessions Topic: Student Submissions Citation: Eom B, Sung J, Lee S, Park C, Paik S, Lee H, Kim Y and Kim Y (2016). The canonicity of word order was a better predictor for syntactic priming and working memory measures than the active-passive syntactic manipulation in aphasia: Evidence from a verb-final language. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2016.68.00138 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 01 May 2016; Published Online: 15 Aug 2016. * Correspondence: PhD. Jee Eun Sung, Ewha Womans University, Dept. of Communication Disorders, Seoul, Republic of Korea, jeesung@ewha.ac.kr Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Bora Eom Jee Eun Sung Soo Eun Lee Chaewon Park Seung He Paik Hanjae Lee Yena Kim Yoon Ah Kim Google Bora Eom Jee Eun Sung Soo Eun Lee Chaewon Park Seung He Paik Hanjae Lee Yena Kim Yoon Ah Kim Google Scholar Bora Eom Jee Eun Sung Soo Eun Lee Chaewon Park Seung He Paik Hanjae Lee Yena Kim Yoon Ah Kim PubMed Bora Eom Jee Eun Sung Soo Eun Lee Chaewon Park Seung He Paik Hanjae Lee Yena Kim Yoon Ah Kim Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Purpose: This study investigated whether sentence repetition-based working-memory (SR-WM) treatment increased sentence-repetition abilities and the treatment effects generalized to sentence-comprehension abilities, WM-span tasks, and general language-assessment tasks.Method: Six individuals with aphasia participated in the study. The treatment consisted of 12 sessions of approximately 1 hr per day, 3 times per week. The SR-WM treatment protocol followed components including maintenance and computation of linguistic units by facilitating a chunking strategy. We manipulated the length and syntactic structures of the sentence-repetition stimuli using a limited set of vocabulary.Results: Participants demonstrated significant increased repetition ability in treated and untreated sentences after treatment. Furthermore, they showed generalization effects on the sentence-comprehension task, WM measures, and general language tasks, but with some differential patterns, depending on task demands.Conclusions: The SR-WM treatment approach, by manipulating syntactic structures and minimizing top-down semantic processing, elicited increased performance on sentence repetition as well as other linguistic domains. Results indicated that it is clinically and theoretically important to examine whether WM treatment serves as a potentially underlying treatment approach that facilitates the distributed network associated with language processing.

Objectives: Constraint-Induced Language Therapy (CILT) is an aphasia treatment program which comprises forced use of verbal language and massed practice. There are many studies about the efficacy of CILT on aphasia, but the results are controversial. Thus, the purpose of the present meta-analysis study was to systematically evaluate the effects of CILT for aphasia and to establish the evidence-based practice of CILT. Methods: Data collection was performed from 5 databases (DBPIA, EBSCOhost, ProQuest, PubMed, RISS) which were about CILT for aphasia. Nine studies which met the inclusive criteria were entered into the meta-analysis. Effect sizes for each study outcome (standardized language test outcome) were calculated. Results: There were two main findings from the current study. First, the meta-analysis results indicated that CILT is an effective treatment method for improving both overall language ability and each sub-language area. Second, CILT was effective for both chronic aphasia and acute aphasia-overall and in each sub-language area. Conclusion: The present study suggests the comprehensive effectiveness of CILT for aphasia in each sub-language area including auditory comprehension, repetition, and naming, and its treatment effectiveness for both chronic aphasia and acute aphasia regardless of post onset time. This research unifies the complicated results of previous studies and lays the foundation for clinical implications.

Event Abstract Back to Event Sentence Comprehension Deficits as a Critical Linguistic Marker to Differentiate Mild Cognitive Impairment from Normal Aging Jee Eun Sung1*, Bora Eom1, Chaewon Park1, Seung He Paik1, Hanjae Lee1, Jee Hyang Jeong2 and Geonha Kim3 1 Ewha Womans University, Dept. of Communication Disorders, Republic of Korea 2 Ewha Womans University School of Medicine, Dept. of Neurology, Republic of Korea 3 Ewha Womans University Brain Institute, Republic of Korea Introduction Individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) presented several clinical symptoms including cognitive and linguistic impairments, but with intact functional abilities associated with activities of daily living unlike dementia of the Alzheimer’s type DAT (Petersen, 2004). The concept of MCI received considerable attention in the past decades as a diagnostic entity to identify individuals at risk for dementia. Early focus on behavioral symptoms of MCI was memory impairment as an incipient dementia stage (Collie et al., 2002; Petersen et al, 1999). However, more recent studies suggested that the syntactic comprehension abilities in MCI seemed to be affected, and these syntactic deficits emerged more clearly as a function of the task complexity (e.g., Tsantali, Economidis, & Tsolaki, 2013). The current study investigated whether individuals with MCI presented differential deficits in sentence comprehension abilities compared to normal elderly adults when the demands on sentence processing increased. Methods Fifteen individuals with amnestic-MCI and 15 age- and education-matched normal elderly adults (NEA) participated in the study. Persons with MCI met Petersen’s most recent criteria (Petersen, 2004) diagnosed by trained neurologists. Their Clinical Dementia Rating (Hughes et al., 1982) score was 0.5. The NEA group showed normal range of performance on Seoul Neuropsychological Screening Battery (SNSB) (Kang & Na, 2003) and K-MMSE (Kang, Na, & Hahn, 1997). Both groups presented normal range of Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) (Jung et al., 1997) and Seoul-Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (S-IADL) (Ku et al., 2004). Both groups were administered two subsets of active and passive conditions from the sentence comprehension task (SCT) (Sung, 2015). The SCT employed a sentence-picture paradigm with semantically reversible sentence stimuli in which linguistic constituents such as agents and patients were depicted using a humanized pictogram to minimize the influence of top-down semantic processing on syntactic comprehension. Digit-forward and digit-backward span tasks were used as a composite measure of working memory (WM) (Yeom, Park, Oh, Kim, & Lee, 1992). The Seoul Verbal Learning Test (SVLT)-immediate and SVLT-delayed (Kang & Na, 2003) were administered. Results A two-way mixed ANOVAs (Group: MCI vs. NEA x Sentence type: Active vs. Passive) revealed a significant main effect for the group, F(1, 28) = 7.804, p < .01, η2partial = .218, with MCI group presenting significantly lower accuracy than the NEA group. A significant main effect for the sentence type emerged, F(1, 28) = 18.401, p < .0001,η2partial = .397, indicating that passive sentences elicited significantly worse performance than active sentences. The two-way interaction between the sentence type and group (Figure 1) was not significant, F(1, 28) = 1.818, p = .188, η2partial = .061. A stepwise discriminant analysis determined the best predictors that contribute most to differentiate the MCI group from normal elderly group. Predictor variables included overall accuracy on the SCT, accuracy on each sentence type (active and passive), WM, SVLT-immediate, SVLT-delayed, education, and K-MMSE scores. The overall accuracy on the SCT was entered into the analysis as a significant predictor in the discriminant function, Wilk’s Lamda = .782, chi-square = 6.761, p < .01. Sixty percent of participants with MCI were successfully classified as an MCI group, and 73.3% of normal elderly adults were entered into the normal group. Discussion Individuals with MCI clearly presented sentence comprehension deficits in a controlled sentence comprehension test. In general, both groups demonstrated greater difficulties in processing passive than active sentences. Results from the discriminant analysis suggested that overall accuracy on the sentence comprehension task is the critical factor to differentiate MCI from the normal aging group, indicating that syntactic comprehension deficits emerged from the early stage of DAT and may serve as a critical linguistic marker among other factors to make differential diagnosis for MCI. Figure 1 References Collie, A., Maruff, P., & Currie, J. (2002). Behavioral characterization of mild cognitive impairment. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 24(6), 720-733. Hughes, C. P., Berg, L., Danziger, W. L., Coben, L. A., & Martin, R. (1982). A new clinical scale for the staging of dementia. The British journal of psychiatry, 140(6), 566-572. Jung, I. K., Kwak, D. I., Joe, S. H., & Lee, H. S. (1997). A study of standardization of Korean form of Geriatric Depression Scale (KGDS). Journal of Korean Geriatric Psychiatry, 1(1), 61-72. Kang, Y., & Na, D. L. (2003). Seoul Neuropsychological Screening Battery (SNSB). Incheon: Human Brain Research & Consulting Co. Kang, Y., Na, D. L., & Hahn, S. (1997). A validity study on the Korean Mini-Mental State Examination (K-MMSE) in dementia patients. Journal of the Korean Neurological Association, 15(2), 300-308. Ku, H. M., Kim, J. H., Kwon, E. J., Kim, S. H., Lee, H. S., Ko, H. J., ... & Kim, D. K. (2004). A study on the reliability and validity of Seoul-Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (S-IADL). Journal of Korean Neuropsychiatric Association, 43(2), 189-199. Petersen, R. C. (2004). Mild Cognitive Impairment as a diagnostic entity. Journal of Internal Medicine, 256, 183-194. Petersen, R. C., Smith, G. E., Waring, S. C., Ivnik, R. J., Tangalos, E. G., & Kokmen, E. (1999). Mild cognitive impairment: clinical characterization and outcome. Archives of neurology, 56(3), 303-308. Sung, J. E. (2015). Effects of syntactic structure on sentence comprehension ability as a function of the canonicity of word-order and its relation to working memory capacity in Korean-speaking elderly adults. Communication Sciences & Disorders, 20, 24–33. Tsantali, E., Economidis, D., & Tsolaki, M. (2013). Could language deficits really differentiate Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) from mild Alzheimer's disease?. Archives of gerontology and geriatrics, 57(3), 263-270. Yeom, T. H., Park, Y. S., Oh, K. J., Kim, J. K., & Lee, Y. H. (1992). Korean-Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. Seoul, Korea: Guidance. Keywords: Mild Cognitive Impairment, Sentence comprehension deficits, linguistic marker, Active sentence, passive sentence Conference: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting, Llandudno, United Kingdom, 16 Oct - 18 Oct, 2016. Presentation Type: Poster Sessions Topic: Academy of Aphasia Citation: Sung J, Eom B, Park C, Paik S, Lee H, Jeong J and Kim G (2016). Sentence Comprehension Deficits as a Critical Linguistic Marker to Differentiate Mild Cognitive Impairment from Normal Aging. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2016.68.00132 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 01 May 2016; Published Online: 15 Aug 2016. * Correspondence: PhD. Jee Eun Sung, Ewha Womans University, Dept. of Communication Disorders, Seoul, Republic of Korea, jeesung@ewha.ac.kr Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Jee Eun Sung Bora Eom Chaewon Park Seung He Paik Hanjae Lee Jee Hyang Jeong Geonha Kim Google Jee Eun Sung Bora Eom Chaewon Park Seung He Paik Hanjae Lee Jee Hyang Jeong Geonha Kim Google Scholar Jee Eun Sung Bora Eom Chaewon Park Seung He Paik Hanjae Lee Jee Hyang Jeong Geonha Kim PubMed Jee Eun Sung Bora Eom Chaewon Park Seung He Paik Hanjae Lee Jee Hyang Jeong Geonha Kim Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.