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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Sec. Speech and Language
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2024.1500735

Running head: Sensitivity of Core Lexicon for Mild Deficits Access to context-specific lexical-semantic information during discourse tasks differentiates speakers with latent aphasia, mild cognitive impairment, and cognitively healthy adults

Provisionally accepted
Brielle C Stark Brielle C Stark 1*Sarah Grace Dalton Sarah Grace Dalton 2Alyssa M Lanzi Alyssa M Lanzi 3
  • 1 Indiana University, Bloomington, United States
  • 2 University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, United States
  • 3 University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Mild language impairments experienced by adults with neurogenic communication disorders are often difficult to detect due to the lack of sensitive traditional performance-based measures. This is problematic since many adults who have mild language deficits experience daily activity and participation limitations that are undetected and not managed. This study evaluates the potential for variables derived through core lexicon analysis to differentiate two clinical groups (latent aphasia, MCI) from each other, and from a cognitively healthy adult group, across three different discourse tasks (Aim 1). Innovatively, it also contrasts the sensitivity with which each task differentiates the groups based on this metric (Aim 2).Transcribed connected speech data from TalkBank were analyzed for three discourse tasks (i.e., Sandwich Procedure, Cat Rescue Picture Description, and Cinderella Story) from three participant groups (Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) n=30, stroke-induced latent aphasia n=29, and Cognitive Healthy Adults (CHA) n=56). Aim 1 used one-way ANOVAs (or nonparametric equivalents) to identify differences in lexical variables (total number of core lexical items; proportion of core lexical items out of all words produced; and rate of core lexical items produced per second) between participant groups. Aim 2 used linearatent discriminanttion analysis with cross validation to characterize the sensitivity of discourse task in identifying lexical variables differentiating the participant groups.Univariate analysis revealed significant differences among the three participant groups.During the Cinderella task, the latent aphasia and MCI groups produced significantly fewer core

    Keywords: Aphasia, Language, Narrative, discourse, Mild Cognitive Impairment

    Received: 23 Sep 2024; Accepted: 17 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Stark, Dalton and Lanzi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Brielle C Stark, Indiana University, Bloomington, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.