Speech production characteristics (i.e., voice quality and speech fluency) in patients with MCI and healthy individuals (Themistocleous, Eckerström, & Kokkinakis, 2020) and grammar, namely Part of Speech Production, differences in patients with PPA (Themistocleous, Webster, Afthinos, & Tsapkini, 2020).
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Themistocleous Charalambos, Webster Kim,
Afthinos Alexandros, & Tsapkini Kyrana (2020). Part of Speech Production in Patients With Primary
Progressive Aphasia: An Analysis Based on Natural Language Processing. American Journal of
Speech-Language Pathology. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00114 Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a progressive decline of language functions. Its symptoms are grouped into three PPA variants: nonfluent PPA, logopenic PPA, and semantic PPA. Grammatical deficiencies differ depending on the PPA variant. Using an automated analysis of a short picture description task, this study showed that content versus function words can distinguish patients with nonfluent PPA, semantic PPA, and logopenic PPA variants. Verbs were less important as distinguishing features of patients with different PPA variants than earlier thought. Finally, the study showed that among the most important distinguishing features of PPA variants were elaborative speech elements, such as adjectives and adverbs. |
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