A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Queen Margaret University

participant’s language impairment. The pre-training language screening
assessments employed a number of different tasks generally considered to
target the various modules and pathways encompassed by the cognitive
neuropsychology model (see Appendix 2.1). It was considered that the
performance of participants on these language assessments provided adequate
data about the abilities to process single words. This data was considered to
differentiate participants in terms of severity of aphasia and indicated specific
areas of difficulty for language comprehension and expression (spoken and
written). However it must be noted that for some participants the extent of their
language difficulties was not apparent with single word responses alone but was
highlighted when connected speech was observed, for example in the narration
of the Cinderella story. Therefore the cognitive neuropsychology approach was
useful in identifying severity of aphasia in terms of single word processing rather
than overall severity. However as the focus of the investigation was on single
word acquisition and assessments only required single word responses it was
considered appropriate and adequate for this investigation.
6.5.2 Support the methodology for learning procedure
The training procedure incorporated a number of approaches to facilitate the
learning of the new vocabulary – pre-exposure and self-judgement techniques,
which facilitated staggered learning of the new words and an errorless learning
approach. Training tasks endeavoured to teach participants information about
the new word forms and meanings in both spoken and written format, as well as
their associations with already known words. The use of the cognitive
neuropsychology model for these processes is described in Chapter 2 (see
Figure 2i in 2.9.3) and Chapter 4 (see Figure 4ii and section 4.7). The model
provided a useful architecture for the procedure and for the characteristics of the
new vocabulary (for example, the pronunciation, spelling and syllable structure
of the new word forms, and word meanings incorporating the visual image of the
word and associated meanings of skills, habitat and food source). The model
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