The Aphasic Individual: A Speaker and a Listener, Not a Patient

TB

Proverb interpretation in fluent aphasia and Alzheimer's disease: Implications beyond abstract thinking

This study compared proverb processing across three groups, i.e. patients with fluent aphasia (APH), patients with Alzheimer's Disease (AD), and normal control subjects (NC). Proverb stimuli were used to examine the effects of group membership and proverb familiarity in two presentation formats (i.e. spontaneous versus multiple-choice) on performance. The sensitivity of cognitive measures as predictors of ability to interpret proverbs was also investigated. In relation to NC subjects, patients with fluent APH exhibited significant difficulty formulating responses for familiar and unfamiliar spontaneous proverbs, whereas patients with AD demonstrated lower performance only on the unfamiliar proverbs. On the multiple-choice paradigm, however, patients with APH exhibited minimal difficulty. Conversely, the patients with AD manifested significant problems selecting the correct abstract response for familiar proverbs. With regard to predictors, language was relevant to familiar proverb interpretations and to proverbs presented in the spontaneous format. Cognition was a sensitive predictor for unfamiliar proverb interpretations and to the multiple-choice format. Deficits on the proverb tasks are discussed with reference to the potential breakdown of underlying linguistic and cognitive processes. The present data support the diagnostic value of proverbs in elucidating brain- behaviour relationships

Creative and Stylistic Devices Employed by Children During a Storybook Narrative Task: A Cross-Cultural Study

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of culture on the creative and stylistic features children employ when producing narratives based on wordless picture books. Method: Participants included 60 first- and second-grade African American, Latino American, and Caucasian children. A subset of narratives based on wordless picture books collected as part of a larger study was coded and analyzed for the following creative and stylistic conventions: organizational style (topic centered, linear, cyclical), dialogue (direct, indirect), reference to character relationships (nature, naming, conduct), embellishment (fantasy, suspense, conflict), and paralinguistic devices (expressive sounds, exclamatory utterances). Results: Many similarities and differences between ethnic groups were found. No significant differences were found between ethnic groups in organizational style or use of paralinguistic devices. African American children included more fantasy in their stories, Latino children named their characters more often, and Caucasian children made more references to the nature of character relationships. Conclusion: Even within the context of a highly structured narrative task based on wordless picture books, culture influences children’s production of narratives. Enhanced understanding of narrative structure, creativity, and style is necessary to provide ecologically valid narrative assessment and intervention for children from diverse cultural backgrounds

Comparison between Spanish young and elderly people evaluated using Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test

The first objective of this work was to compare scores obtained in the daily memory function between young and elderly people, and to check whether there are differences between the groups for each of the profile scores obtained in the memory test. A second aim of this paper is to study the relationship between everyday memory and age, while controlling for gender and educational level. The total and profile scores obtained in the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test were compared in a sample of 60 young and 120 elderly people from Valencia (Spain). Results showed significant differences between the two groups: those between 18 and 30 years obtained a higher average than those over 65. Once the group comparison was controlled for gender and educational level, the statistical effect of age group disappeared. The non-significant effect of group can not be explained by the introduction of gender, because both its main effect and the interaction were not statistically significant. However, educational level had a statistically significant effect which may explain the non-significant effect of group in this new analysis. The main conclusion is the need to carefully control for educational level in all studies related with everyday memory and ageing, as the differences found could be due to generational differences more than to biological deterioratio

A Comparison of Written and Spoken Language in Aphasia

TB

Nanotechnology for biomedical applications - enhancement of photodynamic activity by nanomaterials

Over the last two decades nanotechnology has become one of the most dynamically evolving field of research. The unique properties of nanomaterials, not disclosing at microscale, are examined and exploited to extend our understanding of the interactions taking place at atomic or molecular level. Those findings affect research in many areas, like e.g. alternative energy sources, electronics, physics and medicine. In this paper, the possibility of using nanomaterials for the enhancement of photodynamic activity, is discussed. A brief review on drug-delivery facilitating nanomaterials, regarding their characteristic features, is presented. An exemplary application of silver-doped nanomaterials for enhancement of photodynamic properties of two photosensitizers: Photolon and Protoporphyrin IX, is described. Influence of silver-doped nanomaterials addition on the fluorescence intensity of photosensitizers immobilized in silica-titania (SiO2-TiO2) sol was examined via VIS spectroscopy. Influence of sonication on the fluorescence enhancement was also investigated. It was demonstrated that the fluorescence enhancement of photosensitizers depends on the concentration of both: photosensitizer and silver-doped nanoparticles