05.06.2014 Views

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Queen Margaret University

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Queen Margaret University

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Queen Margaret University

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

Create successful ePaper yourself

Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.

5.8.2.1). Secondly, the participants with aphasia characteristically presented<br />

with errors such as perseveration <strong>of</strong> phonemes and syllables with<strong>in</strong> sessions,<br />

lexicalisation <strong>of</strong> new words, semantic and phonemic errors on already familiar<br />

words, spell<strong>in</strong>g errors despite accurately recall<strong>in</strong>g the new words <strong>in</strong> spoken<br />

form, and errors read<strong>in</strong>g aloud despite be<strong>in</strong>g able to accurately spell the new<br />

words (see section 5.3). These error patterns suggest that participant<br />

performance was affected by factors other than normal variation and likely to be<br />

as a result <strong>of</strong> damage from their stroke (see section 5.3.1). Participants with<br />

aphasia presented with diverse personal pr<strong>of</strong>iles, for example different ages,<br />

years <strong>in</strong> education, months post-stroke, cognitive and language function<strong>in</strong>g. It<br />

was speculated that these factors may have accounted for the variability <strong>in</strong><br />

performance by participants with aphasia <strong>in</strong> the learn<strong>in</strong>g and retention <strong>of</strong> the<br />

new vocabulary and were therefore exam<strong>in</strong>ed <strong>in</strong> order to provide some<br />

explanation for this variability.<br />

6.3 FACTORS AFFECTING THE LEARNING OF NEW VOCABULARY<br />

The ability <strong>of</strong> people with aphasia to learn new vocabulary has now been<br />

established. As discussed above participants with aphasia presented with<br />

variability <strong>in</strong> performance, similar to that <strong>of</strong> the normal population <strong>in</strong> the<br />

prelim<strong>in</strong>ary studies (see Chapter 3). However qualitative characteristics<br />

presented by the participants with aphasia alone suggested the <strong>in</strong>fluence <strong>of</strong><br />

<strong>in</strong>tr<strong>in</strong>sic factors that may have affected the learn<strong>in</strong>g and retention <strong>of</strong> the new<br />

vocabulary or the demonstration <strong>of</strong> this learn<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> the assessment tasks. A<br />

review <strong>of</strong> the literature <strong>in</strong> Chapter 2 identified a number <strong>of</strong> factors that impacted<br />

upon the recovery <strong>of</strong> aphasia which <strong>in</strong>cluded pre-morbid presentations,<br />

biological limitations, <strong>in</strong>itial functional severity and the level <strong>of</strong> aphasia<br />

rehabilitation <strong>in</strong>itially received by participants follow<strong>in</strong>g their stroke (see section<br />

2.6). Individual pr<strong>of</strong>iles <strong>of</strong> participants with aphasia identified a wide range <strong>of</strong><br />

238

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!