Dissolution of discourse in patients with unilateral brain damage.
Item
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Title
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Dissolution of discourse in patients with unilateral brain damage.
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Identifier
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AAI9029915
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identifier
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9029915
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Creator
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Bloom, Ronald L.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Loraine K. Obler
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Date
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1990
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Health Sciences, Speech Pathology | Psychology, Physiological | Biology, Neuroscience
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Abstract
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Although deficits in phonological, lexical-semantic and syntactic processing are apparent in left brain-damaged (aphasic) patients, recent studies have demonstrated that the structure and organization of discourse remains intact. In right brain-damaged patients preserved phonological processing and subtle deficits in lexical-semantic and syntactic processing have been documented. However, there is a paucity of research which has examined the discourse of this population.;The purpose of the present study was to examine the discourse of right brain-damage subjects in order to distinguish specific linguistic impairments from the contributions of visual-spatial and emotional deficits associated with right hemisphere pathology. Three groups of 12 subjects were tested: patients with unilateral right brain-damage, patients with unilateral left brain-damage, and normal controls drawn from the same hospitals and rehabilitation agencies.;Results demonstrated that patients with right brain-damage produce discourse that is diminished in higher-level semantic content, contains ambiguous use of reference and often lacks some of the essential organizing components. Further, patients with right brain-damage were inappropriate in using verbal pragmatic devices, especially when the content of their discourse was emotional. Results strongly suggest that there is a difference in pragmatic competence between the two sides of the brain. A preliminary model of language processing is proposed in an effort to account for the hemispheric-dependent mechanisms used in language processing and their complementary responsibilities in discourse production.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
