Impaired reading and writing ability due to aphasia caused by stroke or by low-grade glioma
Short description
Writing and reading are complex activities that impose heavy cognitive demands. For this reason, writing ability is often affected in people with brain damage. The purpose of this research project is to increase our knowledge of how written language is affected by aphasia, a language disorder that arises as a result of acquired brain damage due, for example, to a stroke or a tumour condition.
Background
Aphasia is a multimodal language disorder that affects both spoken and written language. It arises as a consequence of brain damage, and the most common cause is stroke. Those who have aphasia know exactly what they want to say but have difficulty finding the right words, may have problems putting words together into grammatically correct clauses, and may also find it hard to understand what others are saying. In most cases, the ability to write and read is also affected. Both research and clinical interventions have traditionally focused on rehabilitation to improve spoken-language skills. However, written language is becoming ever-more important in our modern society. As a result, we need more detailed knowledge about how aphasia affects writing and reading ability and about what kinds of training may improve it.
Aim
The overall aim is for the project to contribute to better management of people with aphasia or other cognitive impairments due to brain damage. More specific aims are to identify the cognitive processes that interact in a person who is writing and to explore how those processes are affected in aphasia and how you can train to improve writing and reading ability.
Part-projects
Development of an instrument to analyse naming ability in writing which is sensitive to subtle difficulties in aphasia and/or impaired cognition after stroke
The aim of the project is to develop an instrument that can be used to analyse the ability to find the right word when writing, in order to identify subtle aphasic and/or other cognitive difficulties. The instrument will also be a potentially very sensitive instrument for the evaluation of interventions.
Aphasia and digital participation – a study of individuals with aphasia living in north-east Gothenburg and their close family members
The aim of the project is to investigate the experience of using internet services and functionality in individuals with aphasia living in north-east Gothenburg and their close family members.
Aphasia, generative AI and writing support – a pilot project
The overall aim of the project is to develop effective and customised writing support for individuals with aphasia. The writing support will be based on advanced generative-AI technology and will be adjusted to suit people with aphasia. The objective of the project is to develop a first prototype and evaluate it.
Finished projects
Aphasia book club
Based on our own research and that of others, we wished to give people with aphasia an opportunity to experience culture and promote their reading, despite the linguistic difficulties that aphasia entails – we wished to help them find their inner strength through a joint reading experience.
The participants took a very positive view of their book club. Together with the librarian who led it, they developed appropriate forms for their meetings. The focus was not on the individual participants’ (impaired) reading ability but on the group’s joint reading experience. Reading together in the group helped the participants rediscover the joy of reading and caused some of them to read more.
Publications
Henriksson, I., & Laakso, K. (2020). Book Talk and Aphasia – the Power of a Book, International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 55(1), 136–148. DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12509
Aphasia and written narratives in individuals with aphasia
The aim of this project was to study syntactical processing in aphasia, above all in written production, and to relate the findings made to other linguistic abilities and to the cognitive processes that interact when a person is writing a coherent text. The project used keystroke-logging technology that records all actions made by a writer using the keyboard or mouse.
The results showed that individuals with aphasia performed many editing operations in their texts as they were writing them and that their writing fluency was associated with their editing efficiency. What mattered most was not the number of edits but the strategies used. Further, long and unusual words were hardest both to spell and to correct. Ease of writing was affected by genre. In addition, the results showed that use of a computer-based spellchecker may cause a writer to produce more words, make fewer spelling mistakes, use more complex syntax, write faster and edit more efficiently. What is more, the participants’ use of a computer-based spellchecker led to a general improvement in their spelling ability even when they were not using the spellchecker.
Publications
Johansson-Malmeling, C., Wengelin, Å., Antonsson, M., & Henriksson, I. (2022). Using a digital spelling aid to improve writing in persons with post-stroke aphasia: An intervention study. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, available online. DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12591
Johansson-Malmeling, C., Wengelin, Å., & Henriksson, I. (2021). Aphasia and spelling to dictation: Analysis of spelling errors and editing. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 56(1), 145–160. DOI: 10.1111/1460-6984.12591
Johansson-Malmeling, C., Wengelin, Å., Hartelius, L., & Henriksson, I. (2021). Written text production and its relationship to writing processes and spelling ability in persons with post stroke aphasia. Aphasiology, 35(5), 615–632. DOI: 10.1080/02687038.2020.1712585
Participants
Charlotte Johansson-Malmeling