Cross-language generalisation of treatment effects following errorless treatment in Welsh-English bilingual anomia
-
1
Bangor University, School of Psychology, United Kingdom
This study is a follow-up of Hughes, Roberts & Tainturier (2012) that investigated the conditions under which treating naming in one language can result in cross-linguistic generalisation to the other language. Hughes et al observed greater generalisation for cognate words (e.g., baby/babi). The present study aimed to replicate these results using an errorless sentence cueing treatment. A further focus was generalisation to the untreated tasks of reading and translation. We hypothesised greater cross-language generalisation for cognate items, based on models of bilingual lexical processing (e.g. Costa et al, 2005). We also expected generalisation across tasks, under the hypothesis that all three tasks require access to the same lexical representations .
Methods:
LM, 49, a Welsh-English proficient bilingual, who is 5 years post L. Hem ischaemic stroke. Detailed assessment of her naming abilities revealed an impairment accessing phonological lexical units from conceptual representations. Picture naming was treated in English using sentence and phonological cueing implementing an errorless design. Generalisation to untreated Welsh and English words was investigated using the following protocol:
1. Baseline: LM named 4 sets of 24 words at three time points: 1) English treated, 2) English untreated control, 3) Welsh translations of English treated, 4) Welsh translations of English untreated control. All sets comprised half cognates, e.g. “baby” and “babi”. LM’s reading and translation ability of the same items was also assessed in both languages once at baseline.
2. Treatment: treatment was given 4 times per week for 16 sessions on Set 1 above. HBL was shown pictures, and given sentence and phonemic cues which progressively reduced over sessions, in line with LM’s retrieval ability. Each item was then spoken for LM to repeat.
3. Post-test: Immediately following the end of treatment, LM’s naming of the above sets was assessed in each language at three time points. Reading and translation ability were assessed once in each language.
Results
The number of correctly produced words and of cues needed for correct production was compared between baseline and post-test using WEST-COL (Howard, Best & Nickels, 2015). The English treated set improved on both measures (p<.01) and there was no significant difference between cognates and non-cognates. However, generalisation to the translations of treated words only occurred for cognates (p=.06 for accuracy and p<.05 for number of cues) , consistent with the results of Hughes et al. As expected, there was no improvement in naming the control sets. Across tasks, LM also improved in reading aloud the English words treated in naming (p<.05) , and on the Welsh cognates (p<.01). Regarding translation, improvement approached significance for English words (p=.06) and was significant for Welsh words (p<.05.)
Discussion
This study confirms that naming treatment in one language can result in cross-linguistic generalisation to the untreated language. Generalisation to untreated tasks also took place, suggesting that the treatment improved the strength of phonological representations shared across tasks. As predicted, improvement was generally greater for cognates than non-cognates, supporting models that posit a stronger co-activation of cognates in bilingual lexical access.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank LM for participating in this study
References
Costa, A., Santesteban, M., & Caño, A. (2005). On the facilitatory effects of cognate words in bilingual speech production. Brain and language, 94(1), 94-103.
Howard, D., Best, W., & Nickels, L. (2015). Optimising the design of intervention studies: Critiques and ways forward. Aphasiology, 29(5), 526-562.
Hughes, E., Roberts, J., & Tainturier, M. (2012). Cross-linguistic Generalisation of Treatment in Welsh-English Bilingual Anomia. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 61, 168-169.
Keywords:
bilingualism,
Cognates,
Aphasia,
Anomia,
Cross-linguistic generalisation,
treatment outcome
Conference:
54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting, Llandudno, United Kingdom, 16 Oct - 18 Oct, 2016.
Presentation Type:
Poster Sessions
Topic:
Academy of Aphasia
Citation:
Hughes
EK,
Rothwell
L and
Tainturier
M
(2016). Cross-language generalisation of treatment effects following errorless treatment in Welsh-English bilingual anomia
.
Front. Psychol.
Conference Abstract:
54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2016.68.00087
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
29 Apr 2016;
Published Online:
15 Aug 2016.
*
Correspondence:
Ms. Emma K Hughes, Bangor University, School of Psychology, Bangor, Gwynedd, United Kingdom, emma.hughes@bangor.ac.uk