A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Queen Margaret University

(executive scores of moderate, mild and severe deficits respectively) were
unable to organise their independent learning time and required close guidance
from the researcher. These participants also presented with attention and
memory impairments. However, P3 presented with mild executive functioning
deficit but was ranked second in his ability to learn the new vocabulary. The
group trend therefore suggests that people presenting with executive function
impairment may not be candidates for language rehabilitation depending upon
the level of deficits. Again it may be more appropriate for cognitive rehabilitation
to precede language intervention. In cases where people with executive function
deficits do not improve, it may indicate that they are also not likely to benefit
from language rehabilitation.
6.3.3.4 The impact of non-linguistic learning on the learning of new
vocabulary
As previously described (see section 4.2.2.2) the general capacity to learn was
assessed using a non-linguistic task where participants were required to learn
and recall a specific paper-based route. Participant ability to learn the route
varied from zero to 100%. As the non-linguistic route represented a
demonstration of participants’ general capacity to learn, it was predicted that
participants who were able to demonstrate the ability to learn would be able to
demonstrate the ability to learn new vocabulary in the language domain. The
hypothesis ‘non-linguistic learning is correlated positively with the recall of new
vocabulary’ was not supported for either the immediate (r = +.132; p=.367) or
delayed (r = +.085; p=.414) recall. This suggests that the ability to learn the nonlinguistic
task is not related to the ability to learn new vocabulary. Different parts
of the brain may be involved in these types of learning. However, the nonlinguistic
route task was evaluated as a useful tool in identifying the capacity to
learn – C10 and C11 (participants with the lowest learning performance)
achieved 33% accuracy and zero accuracy respectively. However C8 and C9
achieved 100% accuracy in learning the non-linguistic route yet were ranked
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