A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Queen Margaret University

Therefore it appears that the recall of skills was one of the most difficult tasks for
participants to perform. However, as these tasks were similar to those involved
in the recall of the new vocabulary, it suggests that participants found the skills
most difficult to learn. Overall as might have been anticipated, the easiest tasks
for participants to demonstrate learning (immediate recall) were those tasks that
did not require spoken or written output, i.e. recognition, completion and wordpicture
matching tasks. Conversely, the most difficult tasks to facilitate the
demonstration of learning appeared to be those that required spoken or written
output, i.e. spoken and written naming and reading aloud suggesting a direct
relation to the severity of aphasia. This was also reflected in the demonstration
of retained learning of the new words in delayed recall assessment tasks.
5.19 CHAPTER SUMMARY
The recruitment criteria and procedure for participants for the main investigation
were presented in this chapter as well as a brief summary of the training and
assessment procedure (see section 5.2). The main investigation results were
then reported. These results have established that people with aphasia can
learn new vocabulary despite the presence of aphasia. This ability was then
compared and contrasted qualitatively with the normal population (see section
5.3.1). A case series presented the personal profiles of all participants
individually and demonstrated their individual abilities to learn the new words
(see section 5.4). This data indicated a wide range of background, ability and
impairments within this aphasic population which was reflected in the variation in
their learning performance. Factors considered to affect the learning of new
vocabulary were then investigated using hierarchical cluster analysis and
statistical correlations. These factors included personal attributes (i.e. age, years
in education, months post-stroke, anxiety and depression ratings), cognitive
abilities (i.e. attention, memory, executive functions, visuospatial skills, clock
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