Christiane Pons’s research while affiliated with Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) and other places

Long term changes in the abiltiy to draw from memory the units worked on in language therapy are discussed.

Under optimal conditions, providing language therapy to persons with aphasia (PWA) is an intensive and dynamic process which results in improved verbal communication and greater participation in everyday life. However, due to cuts in health care spending, PWAs are not receiving the necessary amount of language therapy to achieve significant gains in language abilities. Recent developments of computerized language programs and virtual reality applications are promising as they enable a PWA to attain an adequate dosage of language therapy. In this paper, challenges of integrating face-to-face therapy with computerized and virtual applications will be exemplified by the ELA® Virtual House.

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In this paper, a computerized language therapy program that aims at supplying the required dose of practice for PWAs will be presented, namely the ELA®-Language Modules. The rationale and underlying principles for each linguistic level and the linguistic structure of the language tasks for the word, sentence and text level and for dialogues will be explained and how the compo-nents of the ELA®-Language Modules adhere to the principles of experience-dependent neural plasticity. First pilot applications of the ELA®-Language Modules with PWAs are discussed in terms of the principles of experience-dependent neural plasticity and usability.

Following previously published work on aphasic texts and unpublished pilot studies on textpragmatic impairments in right-brain damaged stroke patients (RBDs), we present an exploratory study on textpragmatic dimensions of several text classes produced by RBDs as compared with aphasics and healthy controls. In contrast to the main thrust of published research on (text)pragmatic impairments in RBDs, we assume for them the existence of a specific major impairment of figure-ground segregation, with consequences in defective textual organization, in inferencing, and in metalinguistic behavior. In this way we explain the RBDs’ deficits in producing (but not in comprehending) the essential textual core and emotional elements, and essential inferences. Difficulties in figure-ground distinction also result in RBDs’ insecurity about how well they solve discursive problems. These deficits appeared in the tests that we administered to 4 RBDs, 5 controls, 3 Broca and 2 Wernicke aphasics. Subjects had to carry out the following tasks: (a) oral production of a longer and a shorter picture story, (b) oral and written reproduction of a longer and a shorter oral narrative, (c) productions of telegraphic versions, of titles and of punch lines for (a) and (b). Differences in the RBDs’ performances in these distinct tasks are traced back to different cognitive demands on oral vs. written vs. reductive reproduction vs. picture story telling.