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Published on: June 25, 2019
'Non-semantic' aspects of language in semantic dementia: as normal as they're said to be?
Maria Benedet1, Karalyn Patterson, Inmaculada Gomez-Pastor
1Faculty of Psychology, University Complutense of Madrid, Spain. mbenedet@psi.ucm.es
Abstract:
This article describes a 52-month longitudinal study of a patient, ILJ, whose semantic profile fits the criteria for a classical case of semantic dementia (SD). As in all such cases, it was the semantic aspects of receptive and expressive language processing--essentially vocabulary--that were most dramatically affected. The novel observation from this study is ILJ's performance on a comprehensive language examination. Results from this assessment, even early in the course of his disease, are compatible with the hypothesis that phonological, morphological and/or syntactic aspects of language processing may be disrupted by their interaction with degraded information from the semantic system.
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