A four-fold program of research in communication in aphasia will be pursued: First, experimental psycholinguistics studies will attempt to characterize the disruption of mechanisms underlying syntactic processing in aphasia and to detail the ability of aphasic patients to plan utterances on-line, both in terms of structure and semantic content. Also included will be an attempt to train aphasic patients to produce sentences and to determine whether or not production training for any given construction type also benefits comprehension for sentences embodying that construction. Second, the ability of aphasic patients to use and comprehend a range of symbol systems will be probed; results of this study will be used to inform an alternative form of visual communication therapy for global aphasics. Third, an examination of the pragmatics of communication in aphasia will determine the role of gesture in conveying information and the capacity of aphasic patients to utilize pragmatic devices such as those involved in bridging given and new information. Finally, a concerted set of studies will delineate the contribution of the right hemisphere to the processing of linguistic materials and to the comprehension of other non-linguistic vehicles of communication such as emotional expressions. This program of study should yield a fuller picture of aphasic communication, since it will delineate spared as well as damaged facets of communicative capacities.
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