TY - JOUR
T1 - Cross-language transfer for cognates in aphasia therapy with multilingual patients
T2 - a case study
AU - Hameau, Solene
AU - Köpke, Barbara
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - The issue of cross-language transfer (CLT) in aphasia therapy with bilingual patients is controversial and the conditions determining if there is transfer or not are not yet clear. A higher number of representations and processes shared by the two languages seem to increase transfer. We challenged this hypothesis through a treatment study focusing on cognates in a trilingual patient with chronic non fluent aphasia. Our aim was to investigate cross-language transfer of the benefits of therapy, building on the hypothesis of a post-lexical origin of the cognate effect. The patient received intensive therapy involving both cognates and non cognates in his L3 during 3 weeks with naming skills being assessed for treated and untreated words before and after. Results show benefits on the treated L3 words and also, albeit to a lesser degree, on the nontreated words in L1 and L3. However, no cognate effect was observed. Given that the patient’s impairment can be located at the post-lexical level, the results are consistent with bilingual speech production models that postulate interactivity between levels of representation within and across languages,with cognate effects emerging at the post-lexical level. Within a clinical perspective, the study shows the efficiency of naming treatment in chronic aphasia, and that there may be cross-language transfer of therapy benefits in bilingual aphasia.
AB - The issue of cross-language transfer (CLT) in aphasia therapy with bilingual patients is controversial and the conditions determining if there is transfer or not are not yet clear. A higher number of representations and processes shared by the two languages seem to increase transfer. We challenged this hypothesis through a treatment study focusing on cognates in a trilingual patient with chronic non fluent aphasia. Our aim was to investigate cross-language transfer of the benefits of therapy, building on the hypothesis of a post-lexical origin of the cognate effect. The patient received intensive therapy involving both cognates and non cognates in his L3 during 3 weeks with naming skills being assessed for treated and untreated words before and after. Results show benefits on the treated L3 words and also, albeit to a lesser degree, on the nontreated words in L1 and L3. However, no cognate effect was observed. Given that the patient’s impairment can be located at the post-lexical level, the results are consistent with bilingual speech production models that postulate interactivity between levels of representation within and across languages,with cognate effects emerging at the post-lexical level. Within a clinical perspective, the study shows the efficiency of naming treatment in chronic aphasia, and that there may be cross-language transfer of therapy benefits in bilingual aphasia.
UR - http://www.aphasie.org/de/3-fachpersonen/3.1-fachzeitschriften/fachzeitschrift-no3-2015/13-19.pdf
UR - http://www.aphasie.org/de/fachpersonen/fachzeitschrift-archiv
M3 - Article
SN - 1664-8595
SP - 13
EP - 19
JO - Aphasie und verwandte Gebiete
JF - Aphasie und verwandte Gebiete
IS - 3
ER -