Psycholinguistic assessments of language processing in aphasia (PALPA): An introduction

Abstract

PALPA is designed to be a resource for speech and language therapists and cognitive and clinical neuropsychologists who wish to assess language processing skills in people with aphasia. We believe that PALPA can make a substantial contribution to the investigator/therapist's resources for examining people with aphasia. The comments made by a large number of aphasia therapists throughout the UK, other parts of Europe, and Australia and Canada—some of whom have been using research versions of the battery—have been encouraging. PALPA already seems to have brought a new approach to the clinical examination of individual patients with dysphasia, one which is in tune with the philosophy of considering language assessment as an iterative procedure of hypothesis testing.