Publication Date

1983

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Williams, Sarah Elizabeth, 1956-

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Communicative Disorders

LCSH

Aphasic persons--Language

Abstract

The effect of homogeneity versus heterogeneity of stimulus grouping on the confrontation-naming performance of adult aphasics was examined in this study. The subjects were divided into fluent and nonfluent groups. Each subject was tested under two conditions: homogeneous (all items selected from one semantic category) and heterogeneous (items selected from a variety of semantic categories). No significant differences in confrontation-naming performance were found for either group between the two conditions, although a trend toward better scores on the homogeneous condition was exhibited by the nonfluent group. Differences in response latencies for the aphasic groups in the two test conditions were also nonsignificant, although both groups had shorter latencies when responding to homogeneous test items. Fluent aphasics were affected by order of presentation of the test conditions, performing better on the one presented last. Fluent subjects made significantly fewer overall errors per subject than did nonfluent subjects. Patterns of error types for the two groups were examined and characteristic error types were found for both fluent and nonfluent groups. Related word errors were found to occur significantly more often than expected in both groups. Results of this study are discussed as they relate to the concept of semantic organization of language in the brain. Clinical implications are also addressed.

Comments

Bibliography: pages 46-48.

Extent

vi, 48 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

Download

Share

COinS