The Experts below are selected from a list of 303 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Rhonda B. Friedman - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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on Rapid Word Identification in Pure Alexia Is Lexical but Not Semantic
2015Co-Authors: Rhonda B. Friedman, Susan Nitzberg LottAbstract:Following the notion that patients with pure Alexia have access to two distinct reading strategies—letter-by-letter reading and semantic reading—a training pro-gram was devised to facilitate reading via semantics in a patient with pure Alexia. Training utilized brief stimulus presentations and required category judgments rather than explicit word identification. The training was successful for trained words, but generalized poorly to untrained words. Additional studies involving oral reading of nouns and of functors also resulted in improved reading of trained words. Pseudowords could not be trained to criterion. The results suggest that improved reading can be achieved in pure Alexia by pairing rapidly presented words with feedback. Focusing on semantic processing is not essential to this process. It is proposed that the training strengthens connections between the output of visual pro-cessing and preexisting orthographic representations. ª 2000 Academic Press Key Words: pure Alexia; reading treatment; acquired Alexia; semantic reading. In pure Alexia, also known as Alexia without agraphia, spelling and the recognition of orally spelled words remain intact. The reading problem ap-pears to reflect an inability of visual input to activate orthographic word forms. Another term for the disorder, ‘‘letter-by-letter reading,’ ’ comes from the frequently observed behavior in which the patient names each letter in left-to-right order prior to decoding the word. This decoding strategy results in a clear length effect, a hallmark of the disorder, in which words with more letters take longer to read and are more likely to be misread than words with fewer letters
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multiple oral re reading treatment for Alexia the parts may be greater than the whole
Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 2010Co-Authors: Elizabeth H Lacey, Susan Nitzberg Lott, Sarah Snider, Anne J Sperling, Rhonda B. FriedmanAbstract:This study examines the reasons for the success of Multiple Oral Re-reading (MOR; Moyer, 1979), a non-invasive, easily administered Alexia treatment that has been reported in the literature and is currently in clinical use. The treatment consists of reading text passages aloud multiple times a day. Findings that MOR improves reading speed on practised as well as novel text have been inconsistent, making MOR's role in the rehabilitation of Alexia unclear. We hypothesised that MOR's treatment mechanism works through repetition of high frequency words (i.e., bottom-up processing). We designed and controlled our text passages to test the hypothesis that participants would not improve on all novel text but would improve on text that includes a critical mass of the words contained in the passages they were re-reading. We further hypothesised that the improvement would be at the level of their specific alexic deficit. We tested four participants with phonological Alexia and two with pure Alexia during 8 weeks of MOR treatment. Contrary to the conclusions of previous studies, our results indicate that improvements in top-down processing cannot explain generalisation in MOR and that much of the improvement in reading is through repetition of the practised words. However, most patients also showed improvement when specific phrases were re-used in novel passages, indicating that practice of difficult words in context may be crucial to reading improvement.
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Multiple oral re-reading treatment for Alexia: It works, but why?
Brain and Language, 2007Co-Authors: Elizabeth H Lacey, Susan Nitzberg Lott, Sarah Snider, Anne J Sperling, Rhonda B. FriedmanAbstract:In the Multiple Oral Re-reading (MOR) technique (Moyer, 1979), patients with Alexia are asked to practice reading aloud simple text passages multiple times for a set number of days. Speed of reading practiced and unpracticed passages is recorded. Although Moyer initially reported improved reading of unpracticed text for a patient with pure Alexia (PA), MOR’s role in the rehabilitation of Alexia remains unclear in light of equivocal findings in subsequent studies (Moody, 1988; Tuomainen & Laine, 1991; Beeson & Insalaco, 1998). Conflicting results in these studies were possibly due to applying MOR to different types of Alexia and to insufficient control of stimuli. We sought to remedy this in the current study by developing tightly controlled text passages to address questions of how and on what type of words the MOR technique might be having its effect, and for what type(s) of Alexia.
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Recovery from deep Alexia to phonological Alexia: points on a continuum.
Brain and Language, 2002Co-Authors: Rhonda B. FriedmanAbstract:Reports of five patients whose deep alexic reading all evolved into phonological Alexia in a similar fashion point to the hypothesis that deep Alexia and phonological Alexia represent different points on the same continuum. This hypothesis is explored further through an examination of previously published case reports of eleven patients with phonological Alexia. Data from these patients suggest that there is a predictable succession of symptoms which form a continuum of severity of phonological Alexia, with deep Alexia as its endpoint. An account of the recovery from deep to phonological Alexia, based upon a lexical (no-rules) model of reading, is provided (Glosser & Friedman, 1990), and the implications for therapy are considered. The significance of the notion of a continuum of phonological/deep Alexia is discussed.
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Two Types of Phonological Alexia
Cortex, 1995Co-Authors: Rhonda B. FriedmanAbstract:It is hypothesized, on the basis of a lexical model of reading, that there are two different underlying causes of phonological Alexia. It is predicted that these two types of phonological Alexia will be accompanied by different sets of symptoms. Published cases of phonological Alexia are examined for evidence in support of these predictions. Two distinct groups of phonological alexic patients are observed. These results support the notion of two types of phonological Alexia. The failure to find any phonological alexic patients who do not fall into one of these two categories provides evidence against non-lexical reading models.
Marlene Behrmann - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Number reading in pure Alexia — A review
2018Co-Authors: Randi Starrfelt, Marlene BehrmannAbstract:It is commonly assumed that number reading can be intact in patients with pure Alexia, and that this dissociation between letter/word recognition and number reading strongly constrains theories of visual word processing. A truly selective deficit in letter/word processing would strongly support the hypothesis that there is a specialized system or area dedicated to the processing of written words. To date, however, there has not been a systematic review of studies investigating number reading in pure Alexia and so the status of this assumed dissociation is unclear. We review the literature on pure Alexia from 1892 to 2010, and find no well-documented classical dissociation between intact number reading and impaired letter identification in a patient with pure Alexia. A few studies report strong dissociations, with number reading less impaired than letter reading, but when we apply rigorous statistical criteria to evaluate these dissociations, the difference in performance across domains is not statistically significant. There is a trend in many cases of pure Alexia, however, for number reading to be less affected than letter identification and word reading. We shed new light on this asymmetry by showing that, under conditions of brief exposure, normal participants are also better at identifying digits than letters. We suggest that the difference observed in some pure alexic patients may possibly reflect an amplification of this normal difference in the processing of letters and digits, and we relate this asymmetry to intrinsic differences between the two types of symbols.
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Perceptual Cues in Pure Alexia
2018Co-Authors: Erica B. Sekuler, Marlene BehrmannAbstract:This study provides evidence that pure Alexia, or letter-by-letter reading, may be attributed to a general perceptual deficit that extends beyond an orthographic disorder. The perceptual problem may be unmasked when appropriate perceptual cues are not available to aid in the derivation of an integrated structural description. Four pure alexic patients and eight nonbrain-damaged controls participated in this study. In the first two experiments, subjects’ reading abilities were assessed on a naming latency and a lexical decision task. Experiment 3 replicated Farah and Wallace’s (1991) results that the pure Alexia deficit was not specific to orthography. Experiments 4 and 5 further explored the nature of the perceptual disorder using nonorthographic stimuli. In Experiment 4, patient performance on a target detection task was unaOEected by the number of parts comprising the object but was impaired when the perceptual cue of good continuation was absent. Patient performance also declined when the perceptual cue of symmetry was not available to aid in the integration of occluded object parts in Experiment 5. Overall, the results imply that pure Alexia is most likely to arise from a more general, nonorthographic deficit, and that the nature of the disorder is revealed when the perceptual context lacks strong perceptual cues
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bilateral hemispheric processing of words and faces evidence from word impairments in prosopagnosia and face impairments in pure Alexia
Cerebral Cortex, 2014Co-Authors: Marlene Behrmann, David C PlautAbstract:Considerable research has supported the view that faces and words are subserved by independent neural mechanisms located in the ventral visual cortex in opposite hemispheres. On this view, right hemisphere ventral lesions that impair face recognition (prosopagnosia) should leave word recognition unaffected, and left hemisphere ventral lesions that impair word recognition (pure Alexia) should leave face recognition unaffected. The current study shows that neither of these predictions was upheld. A series of experiments characterizing speed and accuracy of word and face recognition were conducted in 7 patients (4 pure alexic, 3 prosopagnosic) and matched controls. Prosopagnosic patients revealed mild but reliable word recognition deficits, and pure alexic patients demonstrated mild but reliable face recognition deficits. The apparent comingling of face and word mechanisms is unexpected from a domain-specific perspective, but follows naturally as a consequence of an interactive, learning-based account in which neural processes for both faces and words are the result of an optimization procedure embodying specific computational principles and constraints.
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Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published December 18, 2012 Bilateral Hemispheric Processing of Words and Faces: Evidence from Word Impairments in Prosopagnosia and Face Impairments in Pure Alexia
2013Co-Authors: Marlene Behrmann, David C PlautAbstract:Considerable research has supported the view that faces and words are subserved by independent neural mechanisms located in the ventral visual cortex in opposite hemispheres. On this view, right hemisphere ventral lesions that impair face recognition (prosopagnosia) should leave word recognition unaffected, and left hemisphere ventral lesions that impair word recognition (pure Alexia) should leave face recognition unaffected. The current study shows that neither of these predictions was upheld. A series of experiments characterizing speed and accuracy of word and face recognition were conducted in 7 patients (4 pure alexic, 3 prosopagnosic) and matched controls. Prosopagnosic patients revealed mild but reliable word recognition deficits, and pure alexic patients demonstrated mild but reliable face recognition deficits. The apparent comingling of face and word mechanisms is unexpected from a domain-specific perspective, but follows naturally as a consequence of an interactive, learning-based account in which neural processes for both faces and words are the result of an optimization procedure embodying specific computational principles and constraints
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Number reading in pure Alexia--a review.
Neuropsychologia, 2011Co-Authors: Randi Starrfelt, Marlene BehrmannAbstract:a b s t r a c t It is commonly assumed that number reading can be intact in patients with pure Alexia, and that this dissociation between letter/word recognition and number reading strongly constrains theories of visual word processing. A truly selective deficit in letter/word processing would strongly support the hypothesis that there is a specialized system or area dedicated to the processing of written words. To date, however, there has not been a systematic review of studies investigating number reading in pure Alexia and so the status of this assumed dissociation is unclear. We review the literature on pure Alexia from 1892 to 2010, and find no well-documented classical dissociation between intact number reading and impaired letter identification in a patient with pure Alexia. A few studies report strong dissociations, with number reading less impaired than letter reading, but when we apply rigorous statistical criteria to evaluate these dissociations, the difference in performance across domains is not statistically significant. There is a trend in many cases of pure Alexia, however, for number reading to be less affected than letter identification and word reading. We shed new light on this asymmetry by showing that, under conditions of brief exposure, normal participants are also better at identifying digits than letters. We suggest that the difference observed in some pure alexic patients may possibly reflect an amplification of this normal difference in the processing of letters and digits, and we relate this asymmetry to intrinsic differences between the two types of symbols.
Yasuhisa Sakurai - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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kanji morphogram and kana phonogram problem in japanese Alexia and agraphia
Frontiers of neurology and neuroscience, 2019Co-Authors: Yasuhisa SakuraiAbstract:: The kanji and kana (or kanji vs. kana) problem in the Japanese language denotes the dissociation between kanji (morphograms) and kana (phonograms) in reading/comprehension and writing. Since paragraphia of kana in a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was first reported in 1893, kanji-kana dissociation has been the central topic in Japanese aphasiology. Recent advancements in lesion-to-symptom analyses and functional imaging studies have identified some areas whose damage causes dissociative disturbances of reading or writing between kanji and kana. That is, (1) angular Alexia with agraphia causes kanji agraphia; Alexia of kana with an angular gyrus lesion is the result of a damage to the middle occipital gyrus; (2) Alexia with agraphia for kanji is caused by a posterior inferior temporal cortex (mid-fusiform/inferior temporal gyri; visual word form area) lesion, whereas pure agraphia for kanji is caused by a posterior middle temporal gyrus lesion; and (3) pure Alexia, particularly for kanji, results from a mid-fusiform gyrus lesion (Brodmann's Area [BA] 37), whereas pure Alexia for kana results from a posterior fusiform/inferior occipital gyri lesion (BA 18/19).
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Lesion localization of non-aphasic Alexia and agraphia
Rinshō shinkeigaku Clinical neurology, 2011Co-Authors: Yasuhisa SakuraiAbstract:: The author reviews the lesion localization of non-aphasic Alexia and agraphia and proposes a new classification of Alexia and agraphia on this basis. The newly proposed Alexia and agraphia are pure Alexia for kana (Japanese phonograms), or more generally pure Alexia for letters, caused by a lesion in the posterior occipital area (posterior fusiform/inferior occipital gyri), and pure agraphia for kanji (Japanese morphograms) caused by a lesion in the posterior middle temporal gyrus and also a lesion restricted to the angular gyrus. In addition, the anatomical lesions presumably responsible for the parietal apraxic agraphia, frontal pure agraphia and thalamic agraphia are discussed.
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agraphia for kanji resulting from a left posterior middle temporal gyrus lesion
Behavioural Neurology, 2008Co-Authors: Yasuhisa Sakurai, Imari Mimura, Toru MannenAbstract:Objective: To clarify whether agraphia or Alexia occurs in lesions of the left posterior middle temporal gyrus. Methods: We assessed the reading and writing abilities of two patients with this lesion using kanji (Japanese morphograms) and kana (Japanese syllabograms). Results: Patient 1 first presented with pure Alexia more impaired for kana after an infarction in the left middle and inferior occipital gyri and right basal occipital cortex, and after a second infarction in the left posterior middle temporal gyrus adjoining the first lesion he showed Alexia with agraphia for kanji and worsened Alexia for kana; kanji Alexia recovered over the following six to 10 months. Patient 2 presented with Alexia with agraphia for kanji following a hemorrhage in the left posterior middle and inferior temporal gyri, which resolved to agraphia for kanji at two months after onset. Kana nonword reading was also slightly impaired, but became normal by six months post-onset. In both patients, kanji agraphia was mostly due to impaired character recall. Conclusion: The present patients demonstrate that damage to the left posterior middle temporal gyrus alone can cause agraphia for kanji. If the adjacent mid fusiform/inferior temporal gyri (Area 37) are spared, the kanji Alexia is transient.
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Fusiform type Alexia: pure Alexia for words in contrast to posterior occipital type pure Alexia for letters.
Journal of the Neurological Sciences, 2006Co-Authors: Yasuhisa Sakurai, Atsuhiko Yagishita, Yasushi Goto, Hiroshi Ohtsu, Toru MannenAbstract:Abstract Objective To clarify the behavioral differences between patients with pure Alexia from different lesions. Methods Two patients with pure Alexia caused by damage to the fusiform or posterior occipital gyri were given reading and writing tests including kanji (Japanese morphograms) and kana (Japanese phonetic writing). Results Patient 1 (pure Alexia from a fusiform gyrus lesion) had difficulty reading both kanji and kana, with kanji reading more impaired, and imageability and visual complexity effects (imageable or less complex words/characters were read better than nonimageable or more complex words/characters), whereas patient 2 (pure Alexia from a posterior occipital gyri lesion) showed selective impairment of kana reading. Conclusion Pure Alexia for kanji (and kana; fusiform type) is characterized by impairments of both whole-word reading, as represented in kanji reading, and letter identification, and is different from pure Alexia for kana (posterior occipital type) in which letter identification is primarily impaired. Thus, fusiform type pure Alexia should be designated pure Alexia for words, whereas posterior occipital type pure Alexia should be designated pure Alexia for letters.
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varieties of Alexia from fusiform posterior inferior temporal and posterior occipital gyrus lesions
Behavioural Neurology, 2004Co-Authors: Yasuhisa SakuraiAbstract:Reading impairments of three Alexia patients, two pure Alexia and one Alexia with agraphia, due to different lesions were examined quantitatively, using Kanji (Japanese morphogram) words, Kana (Japanese phonetic writing) words and Kana nonwords. Kana nonword reading was impaired in all three patients, suggesting that widespread areas in the affected occipital and occipitotemporal cortices were recruited in reading Kana characters (corresponding to European syllables). In addition, the findings in patient 1 (pure Alexia for Kanji and Kana from a fusiform and lateral occipital gyri lesion) and patient 2 (pure Alexia for Kana from a posterior occipital gyri lesion) suggested that pure Alexia could be divided into two types, i.e. ventromedial type in which whole-word reading, together with letter identification, is primarily impaired because of a disconnection of word-form images from early visual analysis, and posterior type in which letter identification is cardinally impaired. Another type of Alexia, Alexia with agraphia for Kanji from a posterior inferior temporal cortex lesion (patient 3), results from deficient whole-word images of words per se, and thus should be designated “orthographic Alexia with agraphia”. To account for these impairments, a weighted dual-route hypothesis for reading is suggested.
Pélagie M. Beeson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the nature and treatment of phonological text agraphia
Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 2018Co-Authors: Pélagie M. Beeson, Kindle Rising, Andrew T Demarco, Taylor Howard Foley, Steven Z. RapcsakAbstract:ABSTRACTPhonological Alexia and agraphia are written language disorders characterised by disproportionate difficulty reading and spelling nonwords in comparison to real words. In phonological Alexia, it has been shown that, despite relatively accurate reading of words in isolation, text-level reading deficits are often marked and persistent. Specifically, some individuals demonstrate difficulty reading functors and affixes in sentences, a profile referred to as phonological text Alexia. In this paper, we demonstrate an analogous manifestation of the phonological impairment on text-level writing and suggest the term “phonological text agraphia”. We examined four individuals with phonological Alexia/agraphia who also showed disproportionate difficulty writing well-formed sentences in comparison to their grammatical competence in spoken utterances. Implementation of a phonological treatment protocol resulted in significantly improved sublexical phonology skills as well as improvements in grammatical accuracy...
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treatment for Alexia with agraphia following left ventral occipito temporal damage strengthening orthographic representations common to reading and spelling
Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 2015Co-Authors: Kindle Rising, Steven Z. Rapcsak, Pélagie M. BeesonAbstract:Purpose Damage to left ventral occipito-temporal cortex can give rise to written language impairment characterized by pure Alexia/letter-by-letter (LBL) reading, as well as surface Alexia and agrap...
Steven Z. Rapcsak - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the nature and treatment of phonological text agraphia
Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, 2018Co-Authors: Pélagie M. Beeson, Kindle Rising, Andrew T Demarco, Taylor Howard Foley, Steven Z. RapcsakAbstract:ABSTRACTPhonological Alexia and agraphia are written language disorders characterised by disproportionate difficulty reading and spelling nonwords in comparison to real words. In phonological Alexia, it has been shown that, despite relatively accurate reading of words in isolation, text-level reading deficits are often marked and persistent. Specifically, some individuals demonstrate difficulty reading functors and affixes in sentences, a profile referred to as phonological text Alexia. In this paper, we demonstrate an analogous manifestation of the phonological impairment on text-level writing and suggest the term “phonological text agraphia”. We examined four individuals with phonological Alexia/agraphia who also showed disproportionate difficulty writing well-formed sentences in comparison to their grammatical competence in spoken utterances. Implementation of a phonological treatment protocol resulted in significantly improved sublexical phonology skills as well as improvements in grammatical accuracy...
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treatment for Alexia with agraphia following left ventral occipito temporal damage strengthening orthographic representations common to reading and spelling
Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 2015Co-Authors: Kindle Rising, Steven Z. Rapcsak, Pélagie M. BeesonAbstract:Purpose Damage to left ventral occipito-temporal cortex can give rise to written language impairment characterized by pure Alexia/letter-by-letter (LBL) reading, as well as surface Alexia and agrap...
