名古屋大学大学院人文学研究科・第52回日本語教育学講座・分野講演会
日時：2018年5月8日(火曜日)18:15-19:45 場所：名古屋大学全学教育棟・北棟406号室
コンタクト：名古屋大学・玉岡賀津雄 (Katsuo Tamaoka) tamaoka@nagoya-u.jp

Cognitive deficits and their influence
on language processing
in different types of aphasia
Ekaterina Kuzmina, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Oslo, Norway
The Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan (MultiLing)
http://www.hf.uio.no/multiling/english/people/postdoc-fellows/ekateku/
The present study was devoted to investigation of the relationships between cognitive deficits andimpaired language processing in individuals with fluent and non-fluent aphasia. The study consistedof the three stages.
First, given a paucity of standardized quantitative tools for cognitive neuropsychologicalassessment in Russian, a Russian version of the Birmingham Cognitive Screen (Rus-BCoS) wasdeveloped. The BCoS was chosen for adaptation into Russian because it contains a number ofadvantages, most critically, it is designed to be suitable for persons with aphasia (PWA). After
adaptation, preliminary normative data for Rus-BCoS were gathered and the psychometric propertieswere determined. The first stage of the study established that Rus-BCoS is a reliable and valid tool thatcan benefit clinicians working with Russian speaking PWA experiencing aphasia following a stroke.
Second, the relationships between cognitive deficits and language comprehension in PWA
were investigated partly to explore whether fluent and non-fluent PWA have distinctive relationships
between cognitive and language skills. Some differences in task performance on the Rus-BCoS
subtests were observed between groups. Non-fluent PWA were more impaired on tasks that required
allocation of attention compared to fluent PWA and cognitive control was significantly related tolanguage comprehension difficulties in non-fluent PWA. By contrast, performance on memory tasks
was significantly related to disturbed language comprehension in fluent PWA. Thus, the second stageof the study established that cognitive deficits relate to language comprehension difficulties in fluent
and non-fluent aphasia differently.
Third, we tested how cognitive control is related to language abilities and whether cognitive
control deficits are domain-specific or domain-general for PWA. Both groups were impaired on verbal
control tasks compared to neurologically healthy controls. On tasks with relatively high demands on
the allocation of attention non-fluent PWA performed worse than fluent PWA and controls. Moreover,scores on verbal and non-verbal cognitive control tasks were significantly correlated for non-fluent
PWA, whereas on verbal cognitive control tasks only were significantly correlated for fluent PWA.
These findings suggest that PWA have cognitive control deficits that are not limited to the verbal
domain in non-fluent PWA. For both groups, general non-verbal cognitive control was significantly
related to language comprehension and verbal cognitive control was related to naming lending support
to an attentional account of aphasia. However, performance on a non-verbal task tapping relational
reasoning was related to language comprehension for non-fluent PWA only, suggesting attention
deficits have a greater impact on language comprehension for non-fluent PWA.
Results overall highlight the importance of cognitive assessment in PWA and development ofnew strategies oriented towards differential cognitive processes for fluent and non-fluent PWA.