International journal of language & communication disorders
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Int J Lang Commun Disord · Mar 2008
Patients' experiences of disruptions associated with post-stroke dysarthria.
Post-stroke dysarthria rehabilitation should consider social participation for people with dysarthria, but before this approach can be adopted, an understanding of the psychosocial impact of dysarthria is required. Despite the prevalence of dysarthria as a result of stroke, there is a paucity of research into this communication disorder, particularly studies that address the experiences of individuals. The available literature focuses mainly on the perceptions of others or includes groups of mixed aetiologies. ⋯ The findings provide insight into the psychosocial impact of dysarthria following stroke. Speech and language therapy interventions need to go beyond the speech impairment to address and promote psychosocial well being, reduce the likelihood of feelings of stigmatization and changes in self-identity, irrespective of the severity of dysarthria.
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Int J Lang Commun Disord · Mar 2008
Children with specific language impairment: an investigation of their narratives and memory.
Narratives have been used by a number of researchers to investigate the language of children with specific language impairment (SLI). While a number of explanations for SLI have been proposed, there is now mounting evidence that children with SLI have limited memory resources. Phonological memory has been the focus of the research on memory with this population. However, the use of narrative tasks to investigate memory limitations in SLI has not previously been undertaken. ⋯ In support of previous research, the children with SLI showed problems with inferencing, linking directly observed or stated information to likely outcomes. They also showed a limited working memory capacity, and they were more likely to make errors in attention. A main finding was that the narrative abilities of the 6-year-old children were linked to their verbal working memory. The information the SLI group heard was harder to access than information they had been able to generate themselves based on a series of pictures. The findings suggest that children with SLI are likely to be at a disadvantage in classroom situations, particularly for information presented aurally and if the information is complex. The use of pictorial aids may help them encode the information. They would also benefit from having information broken into manageable units.