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Clinical Focus
8 March 2018

Audiological Assessment of Word Recognition Skills in Persons With Aphasia

Publication: American Journal of Audiology
Volume 27, Number 1
Pages 1-18

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of persons with aphasia, with and without hearing loss, to complete a commonly used open-set word recognition test that requires a verbal response. Furthermore, phonotactic probabilities and neighborhood densities of word recognition errors were assessed to explore potential underlying linguistic complexities that might differentially influence performance among groups.

Method

Four groups of adult participants were tested: participants with no brain injury with normal hearing, participants with no brain injury with hearing loss, participants with brain injury with aphasia and normal hearing, and participants with brain injury with aphasia and hearing loss. The Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6 (NU-6; Tillman & Carhart, 1966) was administered. Those participants who were unable to respond orally (repeating words as heard) were assessed with the Picture Identification Task (Wilson & Antablin, 1980), permitting a picture-pointing response instead. Error patterns from the NU-6 were assessed to determine whether phonotactic probability influenced performance.

Results

All participants with no brain injury and 72.7% of the participants with aphasia (24 out of 33) completed the NU-6. Furthermore, all participants who were unable to complete the NU-6 were able to complete the Picture Identification Task. There were significant group differences on NU-6 performance. The 2 groups with normal hearing had significantly higher scores than the 2 groups with hearing loss, but the 2 groups with normal hearing and the 2 groups with hearing loss did not differ from one another, implying that their performance was largely determined by hearing loss rather than by brain injury or aphasia. The neighborhood density, but not phonotactic probabilities, of the participants' errors differed across groups with and without aphasia.

Conclusions

Because the vast majority of the participants with aphasia examined could be tested readily using an instrument such as the NU-6, clinicians should not be reticent to use this test if patients are able to repeat single words, but routine use of alternative tests is encouraged for populations of people with brain injuries.

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Information & Authors

Information

Published In

American Journal of Audiology
Volume 27Number 18 March 2018
Pages: 1-18
PubMed: 29222555

History

  • Received: Apr 17, 2017
  • Revised: Jun 23, 2017
  • Accepted: Aug 1, 2017
  • Published in issue: Mar 8, 2018

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Authors

Affiliations

Min Zhang
Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, PA
Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, PA
Sheila R. Pratt
Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, PA
Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, PA
Patrick J. Doyle
Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, PA
Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, PA
Malcolm R. McNeil
Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, PA
Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, PA
John D. Durrant
Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, PA
Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, PA
Jillyn Roxberg
Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, PA
Amanda Ortmann
Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, PA
Department of Communication Science and Disorders, University of Pittsburgh, PA

Notes

Disclosure: The authors have declared that no competing interests existed at the time of publication.
Correspondence to Sheila R. Pratt: [email protected]
Jillyn Roxberg is now at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, PA.
Amanda J. Ortmann is now at Washington University, St. Louis, MO.
Editor-in-Chief: Sumitrajit Dhar
Editor: Lauren Calandruccio

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