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Annotated Citations

Aphasia Assessment

• Roach, A., Schwartz, M.F., Martin, N., Grewal, R.S., & Brecher, A. (1996). The Philadelphia Naming Test: Scoring and Rationale. Clinical Aphasiology, 24, 121-133.

  This paper introduced the Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT), a 175-item test of picture naming, along with rules for coding errors of various types. The error patterns derived from the PNT form the basis for the modeling studies by Schwartz, Dell, and colleagues. Access to the PNT items are available from Myrna Schwartz. (MFS)

• Saffran, E.M., Berndt, R.S., & Schwartz, M.F. (1989). The quantitative analysis of agrammatic production: Procedure and data. Brain and Language, 37, 440-479.

  The "QPA" methodology, presented here for the first time, quantifies structural and morphological aspects of aphasic speech for the purpose of characterizing patients and measuring change. A comprehensive training manual, developed by Berndt, Wayland, Rochon, Saffran & Schwartz, was published in 2001 by Psychology Press (http://www.psypress.co.uk/). (MFS)

• Nicholas, L. and Brookshire, R. (1993). A system for quantifying the informativeness and efficiency of the connected speech of adults with aphasia. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 36, 338-350.

  This paper introduces a standardized, rule based methodology for measuring the informativeness and efficiency of connected speech in aphasic individuals. Known as the Correct information Unit (CIU)Analysis the system was developed to assess how effectively and efficiently individuals with aphasia communicate the content of messages to listeners, in spite of the structural form of the message.. The system is cited frequently and has been demonstrated to be a reliable measure.(MFS)

• Nicholas, L. and Brookshire, R. (1995). Presence, completeness and accuracy of main concepts in the connected speech of non-brain damaged adults and adults with aphasia.. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 38, 145-156.

  While the CIU analysis quantifies aspects of informativenss and efficiency of communication the procedure described in this study measures the ability of aphasic individuals to accurately and completely convey main concepts about a topic. The study reports high reliability and test-retest stability data and the procedure is a useful addition to the analysis of connected speech in aphasic individuals.(MFS)

Theoretical and Applied Studies of Language and Aphasia

• Caramazza, A. (1988). Some aspects of language processing revealed through the analysis of acquired aphasia: The lexical system. Annual Review of Neurosciences, 11, 395-421.

  A classic in the neuropsychology of language by one of its foremost practitioners. (MFS)

• Just, M. A., Carpenter, P. A., Keller, T. A., Eddy, W. F., & Thulborn, K. R. (1996). Brain activation modulated by sentence comprehension. Science, 274, 114-116.

  An early, influential use of fMRI to elucidate the brain's processing of syntax, from simple to complex. (MFS)

• Plaut, D. C. (1996). Relearning after damage in connectionist networks: Toward a theory of rehabilitation. Brain and Language, 52, 25-82.

  Seminal work extending the logic and methods of distributed connectionist models to issues in aphasia rehabilitation. Follow its influence in Kiran & Thompson (2003). ["The role of semantic complexity in treatment of naming deficits: Training semantic categories in fluent aphasia by controlling exemplar typicality" Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 46, 608-622]. (MFS)

• Price, C.J. & Crinion, J. (2005). The latest on functional imaging studies of aphasic stroke. Current Opinion in Neurology. vol:18 iss:4 pg:429 -434

  There's barely enough research in this young field to warrant a review, but this one is of interest for the suggestion that increased right hemisphere activation after left hemisphere stroke may not be sustaining language recovery. (MFS)

• Schwartz, M.F., Dell, G.S., Martin, N., Gahl, S., & Sobel, P. A case-series test of the interactive two-step model of lexical access: Evidence from picture naming. Journal of Memory and Language, in press.

  This group has long championed a theoretical approach to aphasic language production that derives from Gary Dell's connectionist, spreading activation models. This empirical study, the latest and largest to date, argues forcefully that the disruption of word retrieval in aphasia is the product of weakness in the connections that support the mapping from semantics to words and/or the mapping from words to phonology. Readers will find extensive discussion of earlier works, both supportive and critical of the approach. Note also that investigators who wish to fit the model to data from their own patients can do so by accessing the public website, http://langprod.cogsci.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/webfit.cgi.

• Schwartz, M.F., Saffran, E.M., Fink, R.B., Myers, J.L. & Martin, N. (1994). Mapping therapy: A treatment program for agrammatism. Aphasiology, 8, 19-54.

  The term "mapping therapy" has come to describe a general approach to the treatment of sentence processing deficits in aphasia that focuses on the difficulties patients have in interpreting and producing noun-verb relational structures in sentences. This paper exemplifies the approach and also provides a useful discussion the underlying theory.

Aphasia Rehabilitation

• Hillis, A.E. (1998) Treatment of naming disorders: New issues regarding old therapies. Journal of the International Neuropsychological society, 4, 648-660.

  In this paper, Hillis illustrates the strengths and limitations of the cognitive neuropsychological approach to aphasia rehabilitation through a series of single case studies carried out with one patient. The paper is noteworthy for Hillis' detailed analysis of the patient's deficit, her creative application of treatment and her insightful discussion of the variables that influenced treatment effectiveness. (RF)

• Howard D, Patterson K, Franklin S, Orchard-Lisle V, Morton J. The facilitation of picture naming in aphasia. Cognitive Neuropsychology 1985; 2:48-80.
• Howard D, Patterson K, Franklin S, Orchard-Lisle V, Morton J. Treatment of word retrieval deficits in aphasia: a comparison of two therapy methods. Brain 1985; 108:817-829.

  Following the seminal studies of Howard et al, researchers have distinguished between semantic and phonologic approaches to anomia treatment. (RF)

• Jones. E. (1986). Building the foundations for sentence production in a non-fluent aphasic. British Journal of Disorders of Communication, 21 53-82.

  One of the earliest case studies to apply a theoretical model of sentence processing (Garrett, 1982) to assessment and rehabilitation of agrammatic aphasia. The paper reports a detailed assessment and intervention program for one chronic agrammatic aphasic patient (BB) and provides a useful discussion on why this new treatment approach (‘mapping therapy') succeeded in improving sentence production, when previous treatments did not. (RF)

• Nickels, L. and Best (1996a). Therapy for Naming Deficits (part 1): Principles, Puzzles and Progress. Aphasiology,, 10, 21-47
• Nickels, L. (2002). Therapy for naming disorders: revisiting, revising and reviewing. Aphasiology, 16, 935-980.

  These two articles provide a selective review of experimental case studies addressing anomia treatment from 1980-2002. (RF)

• Ballard, K.J. & Thompson, C.K. (1999). Treatment and generalization of complex sentence production in agrammatism. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 42, 690-707.

  Thompson's "linguistic specific treatment" is one of the most impressive accomplishments of the cognitive-theoretical approach to aphasia rehabilitation. This article exemplifies its use in a single-subject experimental design that focuses on the prediction and evaluation of patterns of generalization. (MFS)

• Pulvermuller, F., Neininger, B., Elbert, T., Mohr, B., Rockstroh, B., Koebbel, P., et al. (2001). Constraint-induced therapy of chronic aphasia after stroke. Stroke, 32, 1621-1626.

  Constraint-induced (CI) techniques were developed for treatment of upper and lower extremity impairments. This study is noteworthy for the creative application of CI logic to the treatment of aphasia. On a more general note, as one of the very few randomized control studies in this area, it provides especially compelling evidence that the content of aphasia therapy really does matters. (MFS)

Techological Approaches to Language Rehabilitation

• Linebarger, M.C., Schwartz, M.F., Romania, J.R., Kohn, S.E. & Stephens, D.L. (2000). Grammatical encoding in aphasia: Evidence from a 'processing prosthesis.' Brain and Language, 75, 416-427.

  This paper introduced a new computer-based communication intervention (now known as SentenceShaperTM) that supports spoken language production in aphasia by minimizing the temporal and working memory demands of real-time speech. By showing that this assistance alone (i.e., without support for word-retrieval) enabled users with agrammatic aphasia to produce longer and more structured utterances than they were capable of producing spontaneously, this study lent support to accounts of agrammatism that implicate processing limitations, as opposed to loss of knowledge. Information about the SentenceShaper is available at www.psycholinguistic-technologies.com. (RF)

• Fink, R.B., Brecher, A., Schwartz, M.F., & Robey, R.R. (2002). A computer implemented protocol for treatment of naming disorders: Evaluation of clinician-guided and partially self-guided instruction. Aphasiology, 16, 1061-1086.

  In this study we evaluate the effectiveness of a computer-assisted treatment program (MossTalk Words®) for individuals with word retrieval deficits. Results indicate that chronic aphasics with moderate to severe phonologically-based deficits can benefit from a computer delivered cued naming protocol and that independent work on the computer is an effective adjunct to treatment. Information and an on-line demonstration of the software is available at www.mosstalkwords.com (RF)

• Fink, R.B., Brecher, A., Sobel, P. and Schwartz, M.F. (2005). Computer-assisted treatment of word retrieval deficits in aphasia. Aphasiology, 19, 943-954.

  This article reviews the benefits and limitations of computer-assisted treatments for word retrieval deficits. Experimental studies, case reports and use and satisfaction data are discussed. (RF)

Action and Executive Functions

• Schwartz, M. F. (1995). Re-examining the role of executive functions in routine action production. In Annals of the New York Academy of Science: Proceedings of a Workshop on the Structure and Functions of the Human Prefrontal, Cortex, 769, 321-335.

  Examining complex action impairments from the perspective of everyday-action errors ("slips"), and the Norman & Shallice theory of attention, this paper argues against dichotomizing tasks and actions into those that are automatic (attention-free) vs. controlled (planned with attention).

• Shallice, T., & Burgess, P. W. (1991). Deficits in strategy application following frontal lobe damage in man. Brain, 114, 727-741.

  It is well recognized that the functional behavioral and social changes associated with damage to the frontal lobes are hard to measure by standard neuropsychological approaches. Here, Shallice & Burgess create clever experimental analogues to the types of natural life situations that elicit problems in such patients and show that they are sensitive to frontal lobe impairments. This work has been followed-up in an important series of studies by Brian Levine and his colleagues at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto (www.psych.utoronto.ca/~levine).

• Kim, J., Whyte, J., Hart, T., Vaccaro, M., Polansky, M., & Coslett, H. B. (2005). Executive function as a predictor of inattentive behavior after traumatic brain injury. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 11: 434-445.

  This article is one of the rare attempts to link neuropsychological tests of executive function to real-world behavior. Natualistic inattentive behavior in individuals with TBI was significantly predicted by executive measures over and above the overall level of disability and age.(JK)

• Hart T, Evans J. Self-regulation and goal theories in brain injury rehabilitation. Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, 21:142-155, 2006.

  This paper reviews applied theories of normal executive function (goal achievement) in an illustration of how theories from disparate fields may be applied to learning and experience-based rehabilitation treatment research in TBI. (TH)

Spatial attention

• Rizzolatti, G., Riggio, L., Dascola, J., and Umilta, C., Reorienting attention across the horizontal and vertical meridians: Evidence in favor of a premotor theory of attention. Neuropsychologia, 1987. 25: p. 31-40.

  Although earlier work, particularly by Kenneth Heilman and colleagues, had emphasized the importance of motor "intention" in allocating attention to space, this manuscript by Rizzolatti and colleagues was possibly the first to clearly lay out the primacy of motor planning in selecting objects for action, and how this process can go awry in spatial neglect (LJB).

• Milner, A.D. and Goodale, M.A., The Visual Brain in Action. 1995, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  This important book has had far-reaching impact on the conceptualization of the roles of the dorsal and ventral visual processing streams. In particular, it departs from Ungerleider and Mishkin's earlier view that the dorsal system codes object location ("where"), and argues forcefully that the dorsal stream is more accurately characterized as the "how" system used to move the effectors to targets in space. (LJB)

• Tipper, S.P., Lortie, C., and Baylis, G.C., Selective reaching: Evidence for action-centered attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1992. 18: p. 891-905.

  This interesting manuscript was probably the first to explicitly show that visual attention could be centered on the hand. In other words, objects near the hand strongly draw attention, whereas those further from the hand are less potent competitors for attention. This insight has stimulated a number of lines of research, including work in monkeys showing that attention to the effector can be spatially extended when the animal holds a tool (Iriki, A., Tanaka, M., and Iwamura, Y., Coding of modified body schema during tool use by macacque postcentral neurons. Neuroreport, 1996. 7(14): 2325-30). (LJB).

Attention in TBI

• Park NW, Ingles JL. Effectiveness of attention rehabilitation after an acquired brain injury: a meta-analysis. Neuropsychology 2001; 15(2):199-210.

  This article systematically reviews a variety of studies of interventions designed to improve neurologic attention deficits. Overall the study shows the importance of a pre- and post-testing control group to avoid the confounding effects of practice on the attention measures themselves. Little evidence of efficacy was found for direct remediation of attention impairments. However, training in attention-demanding functional tasks resulted in improved performance of those tasks.

• Park NW, Proulx G-B, Towers WM. Evaluation of the Attention Process Training Programme, Neuropsychological Rehabilitation 1999; 9(2): 135-154.

  A well-controlled study of one of the best characterized behavioral treatments for TBI-related attention deficits, Attention Process Training, failed to find substantial evidence of efficacy.

Awareness of error and deficit in TBI

• Hart T, Giovannetti T, Montgomery M, Schwartz M: Awareness of errors in naturalistic action following traumatic brain injury. Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation 13:16-27, 1998.

  This paper describes one of the few validated methods of measuring error awareness objectively through structured observations. Using this method, it was shown that people with TBI were less aware of errors in naturalistic tasks and corrected those errors less often than controls, even when the error rate was the same. (TH)

• Hart T, Sherer M, Whyte J, Polansky M, Novack T. Awareness of behavioral, cognitive and physical deficits in acute traumatic brain injury. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 85:1450-1456, 2004.

  This paper discusses the methodological challenge of using discrepancy scores to measure psychological constructs (in this case, impaired awareness of deficit in TBI) and introduces a procedure to control for baseline severity of deficit. Using this correction, it was still apparent that people with TBI were least aware of emotional and behavioral problems observed by others and most aware of physical deficits, with cognitive deficit awareness intermediate.(TH)

• Hart T, Whyte J, Polansky M, Millis S, Hammond FM, Sherer M, Bushnik T, Hanks R, Kreutzer J: Concordance of patient and family report of neurobehavioral symptoms at 1 year post traumatic brain injury. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 84:204-213, 2003.

  Similar to the above, this paper corrects for the problem of baseline differences in deficit severity and shows that the tendency to recognize certain kinds of deficits preferentially persist to the post-acute phase of recovery, although in more subtle form. (TH)

• Hart T, Whyte J, Kim J, Vaccaro M. Executive function and self-awareness of "real-world" behavior and attention deficits following traumatic brain injury. Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation, 20:333-347, 2005.

  This paper showed a relationship between executive function measured with psychometric tests and "real-world" deficit awareness in community-dwelling people with TBI. (TH)

Skilled movement

• Sirigu, A., Duhamel, J.-R., Cohen, L., Pillon, B., Dubois, B., and Agid, Y., The mental representation of hand movements after parietal cortex damage. Science, 1996. 273(1564-1568).

  This important paper demonstrated that patients with left parietal lobe damage are impaired in the ability to generate motor imagery for movements of both hands. Our own subsequent work suggests that this motor imagery problem is much more significant in apraxic than non-apraxic patients. (Buxbaum, Johnson, and Bartlett-Williams, 2005) (LJB)

• Klatzky, R., Pellegrino, J., McCloskey, B., and Lederman, S., Cognitive representations of functional interactions with objects. Memory and Cognition, 1993. 21(3): p. 294-303.
• Klatzky, R.L., McCloskey, B., Doherty, S., and Pellegrino, J.e.a., Knowledge about hand shaping and knowledge about objects. Journal of Motor Behavior, 1987. 19(2): p. 187-213.

  This pair of manuscripts from the Klatzky lab was important in showing that there is a small corpus of distinct hand postures reliably associated with the skilled use of particular objects, and that this "cognitive" representation can differ from the hand posture used to interact with objects based on their structure (LJB).

• Jackson, P., Lafleur, M., Malouin, F., Richards, C., & Doyon, J. (2001). Potential role of mental practice using motor imagery in neurologic rehabilitation. Archives of Physical Medical Rehabilitation, 82, 1133-1141.

  This paper makes a case for a potential role of mental practice in motor rehabilitation. It reviews evidence that the mental simulation of movement can comprise or evoke cognitive and physiological processes similar to ones involved in overt movement, as well as result in motor learning. (AO)

Visual Attention

• Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain.

  This popular review article updates current evidence supporting the existence of two distinct cortical systems underlying control of visual attention--i.e., goal-directed / top-down / voluntary / system and stimulus-driven / bottom-up / involuntary / ventral system. (JK)

Assessment of vegetative and minimally conscious patients

• Whyte J, DiPasquale M., Vaccaro M: Assessment of command-following in minimally conscious brain injured patients. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 80:1-8, 1999.

  This paper describes a cognitive assessment method, based on the principles of single subject experimental design, that can be used to determine whether specific movements are or are not evidence of voluntary command following and, hence, consciousness. (JW)

• Whyte J, DiPasquale M: Assessment of vision and visual attention in minimally responsive brain injured patients. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 76(9):804-810, 1995.

  This paper describes a method that can be used to determine whether vision is present in one or both visual fields and whether attentional asymmetries exist in patients who are minimally conscious. (JW)

• Giacino JT, Kalmar K, Whyte J: The JFK coma recovery scale-revised: measurement characteristics and diagnostic utility. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 85(12):2020-2029, 2004.

  The Coma Recovery Scale-Revised is a standardized assessment instrument for use in assessing and diagnosing vegetative and minimally conscious patients. It is particularly useful for distinguising between the vegetative, minimally conscious, and severe disability strata of recovery. (JW)

• Whyte J, Katz D, Long D, DiPasquale MC, Polansky M, Kalmar K, Giacino J, Childs N, Mercer W, Novak P, Maurer P, Eifert B: Predictors of outcome and effect of psychoactive medications in prolonged posttraumatic disorders of consciousness: A multicenter study. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 86;(3):453-462, 2005.

  This large observational study of individuals with severe disorders of consciousness identified predictors of recovery of consciousness, and provided suggestive evidence of the effects of several medications on the recovery process. These predictors have been used to design a randomized controlled treatment trial that is currently underway. (JW)