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Europa Medicophysica 1998 December;34(4):203-10

Copyright © 1998 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Recovery of a word meaning access impairment specific for the auditory modality: functional interpretation and rehabilitation

Paulin M. ¹, Arcari C. ², Squicciarini F. ¹

¹ Ospedale “S. Carlo Borromeo” - Milano; ² Ospedale “S. Raffaele” - Milano

The ­case ­described ­herein pre­sent­ed a dis­so­ci­a­tion ­between audi­to­ry and writ­ten ­word com­pre­hen­sion. The inves­ti­ga­tion car­ried out ­with ref­er­ence to a lex­i­cal ­system ­drawn ­from the ­domain of cog­ni­tive neu­ro­psy­chol­o­gy dem­on­strat­ed the integ­rity of pre-lex­i­cal func­tions (pho­nem­ic dis­crim­i­na­tion and lex­i­cal deci­sion), and indi­cat­ed ­that the impair­ment ­involved the ­patient’s ­post-lex­i­cal pro­cess­ing. These find­ings sug­gest ­that the ­patient has an impair­ment of the ­word mean­ing ­access spe­cif­ic to the audi­to­ry modal­ity. The abil­ity to ­access ­word mean­ings was not relat­ed to ­word fre­quen­cy, but depend­ed on ­their image­abil­ity . We inves­ti­gat­ed the ­impact of reha­bil­i­ta­tion train­ing ­focused on the abil­ity to ­access ­word mean­ing in the ­oral modal­ity. The reha­bil­i­ta­tion of a ­first set of stim­u­li ­showed ­that treat­ment of ­word mean­ing ­access is pos­sible. However, the improve­ment did not ­extend to a set of untreat­ed ­words. It was ­also dem­on­strat­ed ­that the recov­ery ­obtained was main­tained ­after a ­three ­month ­retest inter­val.