Semantic knowledge use in discourse produced by individuals with anomic aphasia

Abstract

Background: Researchers have demonstrated that people with aphasia (PWA) have preserved semantic knowledge. However, some PWA have impaired access to certain types of knowledge more than others. Yet, all these studies used single concepts. It has not been demonstrated whether PWA have difficulty accessing certain types of features within a discourse sample.

Aims: The main goals of this study were to determine whether semantic knowledge and two category types were used differently within discourse produced by participants with anomic aphasia and healthy controls.

Methods & Procedures: Participants with anomic aphasia (n = 19) and healthy controls (n = 19) told stories that were transcribed and coded for 10 types of semantic knowledge and two category types, living and non-living things.

Outcomes & Results: A Poisson regression model was conducted. The results indicated a significant difference between the groups for the semantic knowledge types, sound and internal state, but no difference was found for category types. Yet the distribution of semantic knowledge and category types produced within the discourse samples were similar between the groups.

Conclusions: PWA might have differential access to certain types of semantic knowledge within discourse production, but it does not rise to the level of categorical deficits. These findings extend single-concept research into the realm of discourse.

Keywords:

• semantic features
• anomic aphasia
• discourse

Acknowledgements

We are especially grateful to the study participants. We also thank Valentyna Hibbs and Amy Henderson in the Aging and Adult Language Lab at East Carolina University for assistance with language analyses. We are thankful to the Biostatistics Department at ECU and Dr Suzanne Hudson for helping us with the data analyses. We also thank AphasiaBank (http://www.talkbank.org/AphasiaBank/) for providing the data and transcripts that were used.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was partially supported by the National Institute on Aging [grant number R01AG029476].