Haskins Publications

Number	687
Year	1989
Drawer	12
Entry Date	11/15/1999
Authors	Shankweiler, D., Crain, S., Gorrell, P., & Tuller, B.
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Publication	Language and Cognition Processes, 4(1), 1-33.
url	http://www.haskins.yale.edu/Reprints/HL0687.pdf
Abstract	Tested the hypothesis that (1) Broca-type aphasics with agrammatic production have sustained a partial loss in syntactic knowledge and (2) despite intact structural knowledge, these aphasic individuals suffer from an inability to put that knowledge to use in comprehension tasks such as object manipulation and sentence picture matching. The speed and accuracy of 6 Broca-type aphasics (aged 47-70 yrs) were compared with that of 6 matched, normal controls using a grammaticality judgment task in which the anomaly involved closed-class vocabulary items. Results show that the source of agrammatic performance was not a loss of syntactic knowledge, since the responses of aphasic subjectss closely mirrored those of controls (e.g., word position effects were found for both groups). Results support the alternative view that agrammatic aphasics have difficulties in processing syntactic knowledge.
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