A study of associations between Cognition and Language: What can Cognitive Screening Section of the Comprehensive Aphasia Test (CAT) provide?
-
1
University of Groningen, Netherlands
-
2
Macquarie University, Australia
-
3
Anadolu University, Türkiye
Introduction. The questions of how language and cognition affect each other, and of how and to what extent cognitive skills of individuals with aphasia are impaired, are controversial (Hamsher, 1991; Tatemichi et al., 1994). These issues are important for the speech and language therapist (SLT), in order to be able to formulate working hypotheses and to determine the most effective therapy/intervention. The Comprehensive Aphasia Test (CAT; Swinburn, Porter & Howard, 2004) includes a Cognitive Screen (CAT-CS) and should, therefore, be a useful tool for SLTs. We report the results of descriptive and comparative analyses on the cognitive skills of Turkish-speaking people with aphasia (PWA) and their association with the participants’ language skills using data from a validation study of the Turkish adaptation of the CAT.
Methods. 14 people with aphasia (PWA) and matched controls were tested using CAT-CS, which consists of 6 subtests: Line Bisection (LB), Semantic Association (SA), Word Fluency (WF), Recognition Memory (RM), Gesture-Object Use (GOU), and Arithmetic. Only word-fluency requires linguistic skills. To examine the relationship between language and cognition, scores were compared to the scores on a comprehensive language battery, the Aphasia Language Assessment in Turkish (ADD) (Maviş & Toğram, 2009). The participants were classified according to the Boston classification (see Table 1).
Results. The total score of the aphasia group on the CAT-CS (mean: 28) was significantly lower than that of the control group (mean: 35) but not every participant scored lower than their matched control (see Table 1). Significant differences between the two groups were observed in subtests that require motor planning and production (LB, GOU), in WF, and in Arithmetic which is known to be sensitive to language problems especially in cultures, like Turkish, where mathematics is based on oral coding. PWA achieved the highest scores in the SA and RM subtests, which require only non-verbal skills. In SA, the least successful items were those that were not common in Turkish lexicon (i.e., Eskimo, nun); whereas these same items were the most successful for RM subtest, which could be associated with preserved attention. Despite the significant difference between controls and PWA’s scores of GOU subtest, ten PWA scored at/above the level of the poorest control (9).
For the PWA, the correlation between the total CAT-CS and total ADD score was significant (p=.021*; r=.607); as well as between the CAT-CS WF subtest and ADD Naming subtest (p=.001*; r=.803**).
Discussion. This study supports the relationship between cognitive and language impairment. Importantly, the evaluation of cognitive skills prior to language assessment can provide the necessary conditions for successful assessment and prognosis. Findings in this study showed that CAT-CS could detect cognitive impairments and that there was a relationship between linguistic and cognitive skills. The use of CAT-CS reduces the reliance on linguistic skills and is recommended to SLTs for evaluating associated cognitive skills of PWA, particularly for those with short attention span and high fatigue sensitivity who could not complete more comprehensive testing.
Acknowledgements
This study was funded by the Turkish BAP (Scientific Research Projects) under project number 1509S632. The study was also supported by ISCH COST Action IS1208 "Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists: CATs".
References
Hamsher, K. (1991). Intelligence and aphasia. M. Sarno (Ed.), in Acquired aphasia (p. 341–374). San Diego: Academic Press.
Maviş, İ., Toğram, B. (2009). Afazi Dil Değerlendirme Testi (ADD). Detay Yayıncılık
Swinburn, K., Porter, G., Howard, D. (2004). Comprehensive Aphasia Test manual. New York: Psychology Press.
Tatemichi, T. K., Desmond, D. W., Stern, Y., Paik, M., Sano, M, Bagiella, E. (1994). Cognitive impairment after stroke: frequency, patterns, and relationship to functional abilities. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry, 57 (2) 189–198.
Keywords:
Cognition and language,
Aphasia,
Comprehensive Aphasia Test (CAT),
Non-verbal skills,
Cognitive screening
Conference:
Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting, Macau, Macao, SAR China, 27 Oct - 29 Oct, 2019.
Presentation Type:
Poster presentation
Topic:
Eligible for student award
Citation:
Tokac
SD,
Mavis
I and
Tunçer
AM
(2019). A study of associations between Cognition and Language: What can Cognitive Screening Section of the Comprehensive Aphasia Test (CAT) provide?.
Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2019.01.00021
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:
07 May 2019;
Published Online:
09 Oct 2019.
*
Correspondence:
Ms. Suzan D Tokac, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands, sdtokac@gmail.com