A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Queen Margaret University

5.12.1.1 Personal attributes
C7 was aged 51;03 at the time of the investigation and was one of the older
participants. She experienced 12 years in education and worked in a factory
requiring basic literacy skills and good attention and concentration skills such as
being methodical and dexterous (www.learndirect-advice.co.uk - profile 811).
C7’s self-rating for anxiety and depression was considered to be within normal
limits and she was 29 months post-stroke. It was predicted that being one of the
older participants and consideration of her level of education and skill in
employment C7 would not learn as much new vocabulary as younger more
educated and skilled participants.
5.12.1.2 Cognitive abilities and the capacity to learn
The cognitive sub-tests of the CLQT indicated that C7’s cognitive abilities were
within normal limits with the exception of memory, which indicated severely
impaired memory. Such impairment would predict a difficulty learning and
recalling the new vocabulary (see section 2.6.3.3) however, as with C2 (see
section 5.7.1.2) it was felt that this score did not give an accurate reflection of
C7’s memory due to her severe aphasia. Additionally, she demonstrated the
capacity to recall newly learned information by recalling 94% of the non-linguistic
task for both immediate and delayed recall.
5.12.1.3 Severity of aphasia
The language sub-test of the CLQT suggested that C7 had severe language
difficulties. Her language screening scores are displayed in Table 5.22 for each
task and mapped on to a cognitive neuropsychology model in Figure 5ix below.
C7’s data (see Table 5.22 and Figure 5ix) indicated that she had a number of
language difficulties at single word level. While she could recognise spoken and
written single words C7 had severe expressive aphasia affecting her ability to
repeat and read aloud non-words (suggesting impairment to APC, POB, an LPC
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