Patterns of word and non-word production in jargon aphasia

This study investigates the single word production of two individuals with jargon aphasia and examines how different models of spoken word production can explain the patterns that emerge. Basic assessments of picture naming, reading aloud and repetition are used in order to explore the following aspects:

• General patterns of success across the 3 task types
• Word and non-word errors: could what appear to be real words be genuine lexical retrievals, or are they more likely to be simply strings of phonemes which happen to resemble words?
• Target relatedness: do error responses have a stronger phonological relationship with their targets than might be immediately apparent?
• Perseveration: what mechanisms can explain lengthy intervals between perseverative responses and their sources? Are there different types of perseveration, and if so, what is the relationship between them?
• Frequency: how can one individual’s pattern of an advantage for low frequency words in repetition be explained?
• Word class: both individuals are tested on nouns and verbs in all tasks. What patterns emerge, and what mechanisms can explain anomalies in these patterns?
• Change over time: one of the individuals improves over time in terms of the number of correct responses. What changes occur in his error patterns, and how do these fit in with other descriptions and discussions of recovery in jargon aphasia?
   

Eaton, E., Marshall, J. & Pring, T. (2010): “Like déjà vu all over again”: patterns of perseveration in two people with jargon aphasia. Aphasiology, 24(9), 1017-1031.