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Old 02-10-2011, 10:19 AM
CarolynS CarolynS is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Corning NY
Posts: 304
15 yr Member
CarolynS CarolynS is offline
Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Corning NY
Posts: 304
15 yr Member
Default Study about Executive Function

I certainly can identify with this:

Study: Parkinson’s disease undermines language processing ability in Dutch native speaker patients

The Medical News, 9. February 2011 06:35

"Katrien Colman demonstrates that impairment of the executive functions also affects language processing. For example, impairment of the executive brain function can result in a patient no longer understanding a complicated sentence construction: before he reaches the end of the sentence, he has forgotten how it began. Impairment of flexibility means that the patient has difficulty in changing the subject, even if there is a clear reason to do so. Impairment of the ability to work in a structured way means that it becomes difficult to construct grammatically correct sentences.

"Aphasia: a different problem
The language processing problems of Parkinson's patients are sometimes compared with those of aphasia patients. Often incorrectly, as revealed by Colman's research. Aphasia, for example as the result of an infarct, can affect the grammatical ability itself, meaning that the patient can no longer conjugate a verb. The patient can then, for example, no longer derive the past participle 'walked' from the infinitive 'to walk'. With Parkinson's patients, this specific grammatical ability is not affected but rather the underlying executive function. The patient is then in principle able to derive a past participle, but in some situations does not do so - for example because he can no longer view the sentence as a whole.

"Don't treat them as children
The research reveals that the language processing problems of Parkinson's patients deserve serious attention. Colman: 'If communication is difficult, this does not necessarily mean that the patient is tired or depressed, or that there's something wrong with his intelligence.' Patients can be helped if people communicate with them in simple sentences, but it would be wrong to treat them as children. Colman: 'We could spare patients a lot of suffering if we learnt to better understand their language impairments and developed suitable ways to communicate with them.'"
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"Thanks for this!" says:
dilmar (02-14-2011), imark3000 (02-11-2011), soccertese (02-10-2011)