Associate Provost for Research Boston University Medical Campus
NIDCD - National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders	Research Resources

Abstract

Abstract: DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project addresses an important gap in the clinical literature: the dearth of tools for remediation of the communication deficits associated with right hemisphere brain damage. The tasks comprising the treatment program are motivated by a theoretical analysis of the neuropsychology of metaphor comprehension deficits and related topics. One notion is that damage to right posterior regions limits a patient's ability to process connotative associations between words. A second notion is that damage to right frontal regions can affect working memory and a patient's ability to review information and to select a most relevant alternative from a set. The treatment is based on a simple mode of representing semantic relations in words and narrative, Thinking Maps(r), that has been used extensively with children. Thinking maps explicitly list the semantic features or associations shared between words that provide potential bases for metaphors. Thinking maps make available the ingredients of metaphor in concrete form for practice and review. The protocol is designed to evaluate and treat: 1) difficulty generating appropriate associations to words; 2) difficulty evaluating connotative shared meaning; and 3) difficulty selecting from among alternative interpretations. Each patient is expected to progress through the program spending more time on some tasks and less time on others as a function of that patient's specific profile of cognitive impairment. Generalization and maintenance of gains will be assessed.

Thesaurus Terms:
brain injury, cognition disorder, communication disorder, comprehension, neuropsychology, psycholinguistics
semantics, short term memory, training
behavior test, behavioral /social science research tag, clinical research, human subject, neuropsychological test

Institution:	BOSTON UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CAMPUS
	715 ALBANY ST, 560
	BOSTON, MA 021182394
Fiscal Year:	2006
Department:	NEUROLOGY
Project Start:	12-AUG-2005
Project End:	31-JUL-2007
ICD:	NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DEAFNESS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION DISORDERS
IRG:	LCOM