Steffie Bruehl

Steffie Bruehl
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf | HHU · Institute for clinical neuroscience and medical psychology

PD Dr.

About

126
Publications
26,346
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
2,971
Citations
Introduction
I am happy to share my research on research gate. Please feel free to request a deposited private copy here. For CV, see: steffiebruehl.de
Additional affiliations
January 2015 - April 2019
University of Manchester
Position
  • Clinical Senior Lecturer
May 2019 - April 2022
University of Manchester
Position
  • Lecturer
January 2015 - present
RWTH Aachen University
Position
  • Researcher

Publications

Publications (126)
Article
Erworbenes neurogenes Stottern ist selten. Es kann in jedem Alter durch eine ein- oder beidseitige Hirnschädigung meist innerhalb einer Woche nach Ereignis entstehen. Bei Männern im mittleren bis höheren Lebensalter kommt es häufiger vor. 50% der Fälle werden durch einen Apoplex ausgelöst (Logan, 2022), als weitere Ursachen gelten Hirndysfunktionen...
Article
Background A variety of therapies for aphasia can be found in the current literature. However, the questions of which changes in the brain are most linked with improvement of language abilities, and how alterations in neural activation are affected by different approaches to therapy, require further exploration. This systematic review therefore aim...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Evidence-based recommendations for a core outcome set (COS; minimum set of outcomes) for aphasia treatment research have been developed (the Research Outcome Measurement in Aphasia-ROMA, COS). Five recommended core outcome constructs: communication, language, quality of life, emotional well-being and patient-reported satisfaction/impac...
Article
Die Melodische Intonationstherapie (MIT) macht sich die musikalische Aktivierung überlappender und bihemisphärischer Areale bei der Therapie von Sprachstörungen nach linkshemisphärischem Schlaganfall (Aphasie) zunutze, um über sie die (teilweise) geschädigten Sprachareale zu reaktivieren und Sprechen/Sprache wieder zu ermöglichen.
Article
Background and aims Executive functions recently have gained attention as important contributors to language performance in aphasia. Picture/word interference embraces both executive control and lexical processing through distracted confrontation naming. Thus, we created a novel approach that embedded interfered-naming into an established lexical t...
Article
Background and Aims Research just started to combine behavioural, computational, and neural accounts to investigate the nature of post-stroke aphasia, but the dynamic aspect of aphasia recovery has rarely been integrated. Moreover, executive functions in aphasia recently gained attention as an important contributor to language performance. Lexical...
Article
Full-text available
Background: People with language problems following stroke (aphasia) benefit from speech and language therapy. Optimising speech and language therapy for aphasia recovery is a research priority. Objectives: The objectives were to explore patterns and predictors of language and communication recovery, optimum speech and language therapy intervention...
Article
in: Sprachtherapie: Praxis - Beruf - Verband
Article
Full-text available
The Complementary Learning Systems (CLS) theory provides a powerful framework for considering the acquisition, consolidation, and generalization of new knowledge. We tested this proposed neural division of labor in adults through an investigation of the consolidation and long-term retention of newly learned native vocabulary with post-learning func...
Article
Background: Creating a holistic picture of children and youth who suffer from acquired aphasia or another (developmental) language disorders is very diffi cult due to missing diagnostic instruments covering participation. Szenario-Kids is a new diagnostic instrument to measure multimodal communication abilities in everyday life situations of childre...
Article
Full-text available
Background Stroke rehabilitation interventions are routinely personalised to address individuals’ needs, goals and challenges based on evidence from aggregated randomised controlled trials (RCT) data and meta-syntheses. Individual participant data (IPD) meta-analyses may better inform the development of precision rehabilitation approaches, quantify...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Collation of aphasia research data across settings, countries and study designs using big data principles will support analyses across different language modalities, levels of impairment, and therapy interventions in this heterogeneous population. Big data approaches in aphasia research may support vital analyses, which are unachievable...
Article
Full-text available
Background and Purpose Optimizing speech and language therapy (SLT) regimens for maximal aphasia recovery is a clinical research priority. We examined associations between SLT intensity (hours/week), dosage (total hours), frequency (days/week), duration (weeks), delivery (face to face, computer supported, individual tailoring, and home practice), c...
Article
Bei Personen mit Sprachstörungen nach Schlaganfall (Aphasie) können sprachersetzende Gesten die kommunikative Übertragung von Inhalten in Alltagsgesprächen erleichtern – oder bei globaler Aphasie überhaupt erst ermöglichen. Allerdings setzt dies erhaltene Fähigkeiten in Semantik und Sprachverständnis, Kognition und Praxie voraus, die beispielsweise...
Article
Full-text available
Author version, Forum Lopopädie, 2021, 35(5)
Article
Full-text available
Author version, Forum Logopädie, 2021, 35(5)
Article
Full-text available
Author version, Forum Logopädie, 2021, 35(5)
Article
Multimodale Kommunikation durch Personen mit Aphasie ist sinnvoll, damit sie eine erfolgreiche Beteiligung (Partizipation) an Alltagsgesprächen erreichen können, insbesondere wenn die zentrale Sprachstörung schwer ausgeprägt ist (globale Aphasie). Sie ignoriert kommunikative Schwächen und nutzt stattdessen die Stärken.
Article
Neurogene Schluckstörungen (Dysphagien) werden meist durch einen akuten Schlaganfall (Infarkt) verursacht und bergen ein erhöhtes Risiko für das Auftreten einer Lungenentzündung (Pneumonie), insbesondere wenn Speichel, Flüssigkeiten oder feste Nahrung nachweislich verschluckt (aspiriert) werden [1]. Während sich eine akute neurogene Dysphagie inner...
Article
Full-text available
Background and Purpose The factors associated with recovery of language domains after stroke remain uncertain. We described recovery of overall-language-ability, auditory comprehension, naming, and functional-communication across participants’ age, sex, and aphasia chronicity in a large, multilingual, international aphasia dataset. Methods Individ...
Article
Background: Recent reviews conclude that aphasia intervention is effective. However, replication and implementation require detailed reporting of intervention is and a specification of participant profiles. To date, reviews concentrate more on efficacy than on intervention reporting quality. Aims : The aim of this project is to review the descripti...
Article
Der Fall zeigt, wie sich die Schriftsprachstörung mit ganzheitlicher Lesestrategie durch modellorientierte Diagnostik klassifizieren lässt, wie sich das Störungsbild im frühen Stadium nach Ereignis gut rückbilden kann, und wie dadurch ein Syndromwechsel zustande kommen kann. Einen Überblick über die Einteilung von Dyslexien und ihrer jeweiligen Cha...
Article
Full-text available
Resembling letter-by-letter translation, Morse code can be used to investigate various linguistic components by slowing down the cognitive process of language decoding. Using fMRI and Morse code, we investigated patterns of brain activation associated with decoding three-letter words or non-words and making a lexical decision. Our data suggest that...
Article
Full-text available
The ability to communicate, functionally, after stroke or other types of acquired brain injury is crucial for the person involved and the people around them. Accordingly, assessment of functional communication is increasingly used in large-scale randomized controlled trials as the primary outcome measure. Despite the importance of functional commun...
Article
Full-text available
Purpose: Speech and language pathology (SLP) for aphasia is a complex intervention delivered to a heterogeneous population within diverse settings. Simplistic descriptions of participants and interventions in research hinder replication, interpretation of results, guideline and research developments through secondary data analyses. This study aimed...
Article
Fazit: Echolalie und Perseverationen bei zentralen Sprachstörungen können die Kommunikation von PatientInnen im Alltag erheblich behindern und sollten deshalb frühzeitig aber vorsichtig in der Sprachtherapie rückgemeldet und gebremst werden, um an ihre Stelle adäquate und intentionale kommunikative Äußerungen treten zu lassen.
Article
Full-text available
Purpose: Speech and language pathology (SLP) for aphasia is a complex intervention delivered to a heterogeneous population within diverse settings. Simplistic descriptions of participants and interventions in research hinder replication, interpretation of results, guideline and research developments through secondary data analyses. This study aimed...
Article
Purpose: Over and above language deficits, persons with aphasia can present with impairments in executive functions, including deficits in cognitive flexibility. Cognitive flexibility constitutes the ability to update behaviour quickly and flexibly in a changing environment. Its deficits can restrict communicative ability, e. g. the ability to chan...
Article
Full-text available
Personen mit Aphasie erleben den Verlust ihrer Sprache und ihrer Gesprächsfähigkeit meist als grosse Einschränkung. Deshalb ist ein häufiges Ziel der Sprachtherapie, die Teilhabe an Gesprächen zu verbessern. Studien zeigen, dass für erfolgreiche Gespräche neben sprachlichen Fähigkeiten auch Exekutivfunktionen relevant sind, insbesondere die Umstel...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Speech and language therapy (SLT) benefits people with aphasia following stroke. Group level summary statistics from randomised controlled trials hinder exploration of highly complex SLT interventions and a clinically relevant heterogeneous population. Creating a database of individual participant data (IPD) for people with aphasia aim...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Speech and language therapy (SLT) benefits people with aphasia following stroke. Group level summary statistics from randomised controlled trials hinder exploration of highly complex SLT interventions and a clinically relevant heterogeneous population. Creating a database of individual participant data (IPD) for people with aphasia aims...
Article
Besides language deficits, persons with aphasia can present with impairments in executive functions such as cognitive flexibility. Since these impairments can restrict communicative abilities, diagnostics for aphasia should include their assessment. However, tests of executive functions, including symptoms expressed in everyday communication, are l...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Background: Speech and language therapy (SLT) interventions for people with aphasia are complex-for example, interventions vary by delivery model (face-to-face, tele-rehabilitation), dynamic (group, 1-to-1) and provider. Therapists tailor the functional relevance and intervention difficulty to the individual's needs. Therapy regimes are planned at...
Article
It is slightly over 40 years since cognitive neuroscience arrived on the research stage. This novel fi eld revolutionised our concepts regarding the neural basis of cognition, including the processes underlying normal language processing, their breakdown in neurological patients (including aphasia) and their amelioration in the course of recovery, a...
Article
Full-text available
Neuropsychological assessment, brain imaging and computational modelling have augmented our understanding of the multifaceted functional deficits in people with language disorders after stroke. Despite the volume of research using each technique, no studies have attempted to assimilate all three approaches in order to generate a unified behavioural...
Article
Besides language deficits, persons with aphasia (PWA) can have impairments in cognitive flexibility, which may influence communicative abilities negatively. The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether therapy including cognitive flexibility leads to improvement in language skills as well as in communicative abilities. 10 single case studie...
Article
Background: SAPS-'Sprachsystematisches Aphasiescreening'-is a novel language-systematic aphasia screening developed for the German language, which already had been positively evaluated. It offers a fast assessment of modality-specific psycholinguistic components at different levels of complexity and the derivation of impairment-based treatment foc...
Article
Background: Treatment guidelines for aphasia recommend intensive speech and language therapy for chronic (≥6 months) aphasia after stroke, but large-scale, class 1 randomised controlled trials on treatment effectiveness are scarce. We aimed to examine whether 3 weeks of intensive speech and language therapy under routine clinical conditions improv...
Article
Assessing communicative-pragmatic performance in childhood aphasia is hardly possible with the currently available test instruments. However, affected children are in risk of long-term consequences regarding their communicative skills and social participation. Developed in 2015, the Szenario-Kids is a diagnostic instrument for the evaluation of mul...
Article
Background: Re-learning of lexical entries is fundamental to rehabilitation of the common word finding deficits in language disorders after brain damage. Previous studies examined and compared neural correlates of speech production and word learning in aphasic and healthy speakers, but longitudinal control studies were rarely set out to mimic the l...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Much recent progress has been made in developing speech–language therapy in primary progressive aphasia (PPA). Several treatment approaches that have shown significant effects with people with aphasia have been adapted and re-evaluated for PPA. Constraint-induced aphasia therapy (CIAT) is a well-evaluated method that has yielded signifi...
Article
Wir stellen einen Patienten vor, der unter einer selektiven pathologischen Beeintrachtigung des verbalen Arbeitsgedachtnisses leidet („Phonological Short-Term Memory Syndrome“). Um die Lern- und Merkfahigkeit des Patienten zu uberprufen, haben wir mit ihm den Verbalen Lern- und Merkfahigkeitstest (VLMT) durchgefuhrt Unsere Hypothese war, dass der P...
Article
Full-text available
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in healthy participants successfully applied picture/word interference paradigms to localise stages of word processing (Abel et al., 2009). The interference task distracts picture naming by nearly simultaneous presentation of words, which facilitate naming responses when phonologically related or...
Article
Full-text available
Current diagnostics of childhood aphasia operate with only a few test instruments. In particular, there is no test that assesses communicative-pragmatic performance. The Szenario-Kids is a diagnostic instrument under development for the evaluation of multimodal communication skills of 8- to 15-year-old children suffering from aphasia. 2 parallelize...
Article
Trotz großer Fortschritte in der Therapieforschung lassen sich bislang nur wenige eindeutige Empfehlungen für die logopädi-sche Behandlung von primär progressiver Aphasie (PPA) formu-lieren. Die folgende Studie untersucht die Effektivität des aus-schließlich verbalen Therapieansatzes CIAT bei 2 Patienten mit der nicht flüssigen Variante von PPA. Th...
Article
Both hemispheres are engaged in recovery from word production deficits in aphasia. Lexical therapy has been shown to induce brain reorganization even in patients with chronic aphasia. However, the interplay of factors influencing reorganization patterns still remains unresolved. We were especially interested in the relation between lesion site, the...
Article
E-Learning dient vielfach als didaktisches Mittel zur Wissensvermittlung. Für das logopädische Störungsbild der Dysarthrie wurde eine Lernanwendung entwickelt und evaluiert, die Praxisbezüge durch Patientenvideos mit Basiswissen kombiniert und als onlinebasiertes Lernszenario konzipiert wurde. 74 Berufsfachschüler und 11 Studierende bewerteten dur...
Article
Da die Wortabrufstörung ein häufig auftretendes und alle Syndrome betreffendes Symptom bei Aphasie ist, wird ihrer Behandlung ein hoher Stellenwert im logopädischen Alltag beigemessen. Es liegen bereits zahlreiche Studien zur Reorganisation von Sprache nach einem Schlaganfall vor, Längsschnittstudien sind jedoch sel- tener. Die Ergebnisse bezüglich...
Article
Full-text available
In: Verbandszeitung für Bundesverband Aphasie
Article
Background: The aim of lexical retrieval treatment for people with anomia is not just to improve accessibility of lexical items for confrontation naming but to carry over this improvement to communicative situations. However, there is no consensus on what measures are the most suitable to evaluate whether such changes have occurred. Anomia is one o...
Article
Full-text available
Model-oriented therapies of aphasic word production have been shown to be effective, with item-specific therapy effects being larger than generalisation effects for untrained items. However, it remains unclear whether semantic versus phonological therapy lead to differential effects, depending on type of lexical impairment. Functional imaging studi...
Article
Die Broca-Aphasie ist auf eine Schädigung des linken unteren Stirnlappens zurück zu führen. Sie ist durch nicht-flüssiges Sprechen mit reichlich phonematischen Paraphasien sowie durch kurze, vereinfachte Satzstrukturen charakterisiert und häufig mit Störungen des Sprechens assoziiert.
Article
Language deficits are regularly found in cortical neurodegenerative diseases. The progression of language deficits shows a considerable inter-individual variability even within one diagnostic group. We aimed at detecting patterns of altered diffusion as well as atrophy of cerebral gray and white matter which underlie ongoing language-related deteri...
Article
Acquired language disorders can be caused by stroke or degenerative dementia. An important feature of dementia-related disorders is its progression in the course of the disease and the extension to other cognitive domains and/or linguistic levels of processing. Word retrieval is affected frequently and from early disease stages on, either as predom...
Article
Der Begriff der Aphasie umfasst im angloamerikanischen Sprachraum Sprachstorungen nach zerebro-vaskularen Ereignissen und bei neurodegenerativen Erkrankungen. In einem Vergleich beider Formen von Sprachstorungen soll gezeigt werden, dass dieser weite Begriff gut begrundet ist. Die Ubersichtsarbeit baut auf einer selektiven Literaturrecherche auf. I...
Article
Bei Sprachgesunden erfolgt der Zugriff auf Einträge im mentalen Lexikon in der Rezeption und Produktion von Sprache automa- tisch [1]. Bei Patienten mit lexikalischen Störungen dagegen ist der Zugriff auf Worteinträge gestört, sodass sie durch gezielte therapeutische Intervention wiedererworben bzw. reaktiviert werden müssen. Sowohl semantisch als...
Article
Bisher gibt es kaum Studien zum Training von sprachbezogener Konfliktverarbeitung oder seiner Entsprechung im Gehirn. Im Rahmen eines von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft finanzierten Projekts (AB 282/2-1) führten wir bei einer Patientin mit chronischer Aphasie nach Schlaganfall ein kombiniertes Sprachverständnis- und Benenntraining mit auditiv...
Article
Fruhere Studien zur Hirnreorganisation bei Aphasie – einschlieslich Studien zum Einfluss von lexikalischer Therapie – haben gezeigt, dass beide Hirnhalften einen Beitrag zur aphasischen Ruckbildung leisten. Jedoch ist Sprache ublicherweise in der linken Hirnhalfte verortet – was Fragen zur Rolle der rechten Hirnhalfte bei intakter Sprachverarbeitun...
Article
Das sprachsystematische Aphasiescreening (SAPS) ist ein neu entwickeltes diagnostisches Instrument, mit dem die Verarbeitungsebenen Phonetik/Phonologie, Lexikon/Semantik und Morphologie/Syntax nach ansteigendem Schwierigkeitsgrad rezeptiv und expressiv gepruft werden, um darauf aufbauend storungsspezifische Behandlungen ableiten und evaluieren zu k...
Article
Particularly in right-handed individuals, the left brain hemisphere usually is language-dominant. Nevertheless, both hemispheres have reported to be engaged in lexical processing of healthy speakers. Along the same lines, both hemispheres seem to contribute to the recovery of word processing deficits. We applied lexical training to patients with ap...
Thesis
Die vorliegende Habilitationsschrift präsentiert neun englischsprachige und drei deutschsprachige Publikationen, in denen die normale und gestörte Wortverarbeitung aus psycholinguistischer, neurolinguistischer und/ oder sprachtherapeutischer Sicht beleuchtet wird. Zunächst wird eine Erweiterung des psycholinguistischen Modells von Dell, das zur com...
Article
Full-text available
Previous picture-word interference (PWI) fMRI-paradigms revealed ambiguous mechanisms underlying facilitation and inhibition in healthy subjects. Lexical distractors revealed increased (enhancement) or decreased (suppression) activation in language and monitoring/control areas. Performing a secondary examination and data analysis, we aimed to illum...
Article
Full-text available
Speech-language therapy for patients with Alzheimer-type dementia (AD) remains greatly unexplored. Recent studies demonstrate that language performance in progressive language disorders can be improved through therapies of word processing. However, performance deteriorates again after therapy cessation. Computer-assisted home training appears to be...
Article
Overt picture naming causes activation in both left and right hemispheres as demonstrated by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. Unexpectedly, a previous experiment revealed that there was no difference in brain lateralization related to handedness. To understand the mechanisms behind this phenomenon and to investigate the influen...
Article
In unserer Therapiestudie wurden erstmals kognitive und neuronale Untersuchungsverfahren in einem modellgeleiteten Behandlungsansatz bei 3 Personen mit aphasischen Wortabrufstörungen zusammengeführt: Ausgehend von einer computerunterstützten Feststellung der Störung im Dell-Modell erfolgten störungsspezifische und -unspezifische Therapie zum Vergle...
Article
Background: Studies on anomia treatment in semantic dementia demonstrate that re-learning is possible, but maintenance and generalisation of improvements are limited. Changes in cortical activation associated with anomia treatment have already been demonstrated in aphasic patients after stroke. Recovery of brain functions under the impact of defici...
Article
Full-text available
The precuneus is part of the default network of the human brain, which exhibits a high level of activity during the resting state and lower activity during task-related behavior. Typically, the posterior midline areas show this characteristic response in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies. In Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cogn...
Article
Full-text available
In den vergangenen Jahren wurde Evidenz dafür vorgelegt, dass Patienten mit pathologischer Beeinträchtigung des verbalen Arbeitsgedächtnisses nach Alan Baddeley gleichwohl zu verbalem Lernen in der Lage sind. Diese Fähigkeit erstreckt sich unter anderem auf das Erlernen von Assoziationen zwischen bedeutungsvollen Wörtern (Paar-Assoziations-Lernen),...
Article
Background: In the cognitive neurolinguistic approach to lexical deficits in aphasia, impaired levels of processing are localised in a cognitive model. Model-oriented treatment may target these impaired components. Thus a precise assessment of the disorder is crucial. Connectionist models add to this by using computer simulation to specify the deta...
Article
In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, brain activations of correct and erroneous picture naming responses were investigated in 34 healthy subjects using an event-related design. We regarded main effects comprising all (ALL), false (FAL), or correct (COR) responses only. Despite the rare error occurrence, activation maxima differed be...