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The aim of the present study was to investigate the five different components of self-perception (academic competence, social acceptance, athletic competence, physical appearance and school behavior), and to identify the dimensions that affect self-esteem in children with Childhood onset Fluency Disorder (CoFD). The study sample consisted of thirty children with CoFD and, as controls, thirty children without CoFD, aged from 9 to 11;7 years old. The following instruments were used: (1) the Greek version of Self-Perception Profile for Children (SPPC), (2) the "Children's Phonetic and Phonological development assessment" and, (3) a demographic characteristics form. Results revealed that while children with CoFD did report lower perceived academic competence than did those of the control group, and their academic competence self-perception shaped both their self-esteem and their school behavior self-perception. Moreover, academic competence self-perception was found to mediate in the relationship between CoFD, self-esteem and school behavior self-perception. Perceived academic competence in children with CoFD is linked to self-esteem and perceived school behavior, and this may impact on their relationships, emotional health and overall well-being. Health professionals should become able to estimate coexisting psychological difficulties and negative behaviors of parents or teachers that may affect the children's self-esteem. Furthermore, they should be able to suggest targeted psychological interventions for children and parents, while in the same frame teachers need to be properly trained about the management of stuttering in the classroom. The role of the speech therapist in the school context for in-service provision of information is therefore considered to be of paramount importance.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation method that has been suggested as a possible treatment method for cognitive impairment in patients with Alzheimer's Disease (pwAD), similar to multidomain cognitive training (CT). The effectiveness, however, of combining these techniques for pwAD remains controversial due to the variability in rTMS parameters, differences in CT protocol designs—many of which neglect the language domain—and the inclusion of patients at various stages of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and with different types of dementia. The current review aims to evaluate the cognitive benefits of combining rTMS with CT, including language training, for individuals with mild to moderate AD. An extensive literature search was conducted in PubMed, Google Scholar, and the Cochrane Library with relevant terms, resulting in nine studies with a total of 290 participants [190 in the Active Group (AG) and 100 in the Control Group (CG)]. The comprehensive review of the articles revealed that the combined treatment improved global cognitive function, as well as neurocognitive, neuropsychiatric, and quality of life in the AG. Nevertheless, these results should be interpreted cautiously, given the relatively small number of existing studies on this specific combination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates the comprehension of syntactic and affective prosody in adults with autism spectrum disorder without accompanying cognitive deficits (ASD w/o cognitive deficits) as well as age-, education- and gender-matched unimpaired adults, while processing orally presented sentences. Two experiments were conducted: (a) an on-line sentence completion task containing local subject/object ambiguities and (b) an affective prosody task exploring the comprehension of six emotions. The syntactic prosody task revealed that the experimental group performed similar to the control group on the fillers and the object condition. On the other hand, the ASD w/o cognitive deficits group manifested lower accuracy compared to the unimpaired controls in the subject reading condition, as well as slower reaction times in all conditions. In the affective prosody task, the experimental group performed significantly worse than the controls in the recognition of the emotion of surprise, whereas no differences between the experimental and the control group were attested in the recognition of all other emotions. A positive correlation was found between the two tasks in the ASD w/o cognitive deficits group. Thus, individuals with ASD w/o cognitive deficits face slight difficulties with the decoding of prosody, both the syntactic and the affective one. More specifically, these difficulties are attested in the most difficult conditions, i.e. the subject reading and the emotion of surprise.

Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is a disorder which affects not only speech-motor planning but also language ability more broadly. The present study attempts to explore the morphosyntactic, socio-cognitive, and prosody comprehension skills of children with CAS. Twenty preschool children with CAS and 20 typically developing children listened to a story, while viewing a wordless PowerPoint, picture presentation on a computer screen. Then, they were instructed to retell the story. Each participant listened to two stories, one with "lively" and one with "flat" prosody. The results revealed poor socio-cognitive abilities which were also evident in the use of verb-complement clauses, and poor prosody comprehension skills in the group with CAS. These findings affirm that morphosyntactic deficits are not the core characteristic of CAS, and suggest a connection between the production and comprehension of prosody, and between prosodic and (socio)-cognitive skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although language impairment is frequently observed in patients with Alzheimer's disease (pwAD), targeted language rehabilitation is often overlooked. The present study reviews published evidence on the impact of language training, either alone or in combination with cognitive training, on cognitive outcomes in pwAD. A systematic search of PubMed, Google Scholar, and Cochrane was carried out, including studies published from inception to November 2023. A total of eight research articles (four randomized controlled trials and four observational studies) met the inclusion criteria: six assessed language training combined with cognitive training and two evaluated language rehabilitation alone. Regarding language and non-language (mainly memory, attention, and executive functions) outcomes, there was a consensus among studies that language rehabilitation (alone or in combination with cognitive training) yields positive results. Some of the articles also explored the impact on patients' and their caregivers' quality of life, with all but one showing improvement. Consequently, the combination of language and cognitive training leads to improvements across various cognitive domains. However, limited evidence supports the value of sole language rehabilitation. This conclusion is influenced by heterogeneity among studies (different types and duration of interventions, small participant sets, various assessment tools), and, thus, further research is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patients with a recent diagnosis of schizophrenia and individuals receiving a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder without accompanying intellectual impairment (ASD w/o intellectual impairment) during their adulthood share several clinical characteristics. Exploring under-investigated aspects of these two clinical conditions may shed light on their possible connection and facilitate differential diagnosis at very early stages. To this end, we explored the ability of 15 adults with a recent diagnosis of schizophrenia, 15 individuals diagnosed with ASD w/o intellectual impairment as adults, and 15 healthy adults to resolve sentence ambiguities with the use of syntactic prosody, and to decode happiness, anger, sadness, surprise, fear, and neutrality based on affective prosody. Results revealed intact perception of syntactic prosody in adults with schizophrenia, but impaired affective prosody recognition, which could be attributed, however, to emotion processing difficulties overall. On the other hand, individuals with ASD w/o intellectual impairment were impaired on prosody comprehension per se, as evidenced in the most challenging conditions, namely the subject-reading condition and the emotion of surprise. The differences in prosody comprehension ability between the two clinical conditions may serve as an indicator, among other signs, during the diagnostic evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports results from four experiments investigating the perfective past tense of Greek in adult second language (L2) learners. The data come from L2 learners of Greek with intermediate to advanced L2 proficiency and different native language (L1) backgrounds, and L1 speakers of Greek. All participants were tested in both oral and written elicited production and acceptability judgment tasks on both existing and novel verb stimuli. The results showed that the L2 learners did not achieve native-like performance on the perfective past tense in Greek, even at an advanced level of proficiency. The L2 learners often chose verb forms that did not encode the perfective past tense. Differences to native speakers were found particularly for non-sigmatic verb forms, which contain morphological irregularities in the target language. The results of the four experiments will be discussed in the light of previous findings and accounts of inflectional morphology in adult L2 learners. Taken together, the results suggest that L2 learners rely more on stored inflected word forms and on associative generalizations than native speakers. (Contains 5 tables.)

AbstractThe recent coronavirus emergency raised the question of whether telerehabilitation could be as effective as conventional face-to-face intervention. The aim of the present study was to compared language and cognitive training delivered to patients from a distance, through telecommunication systems, for the same intervention conducted on a face-to-face mode in patients with multi domain amnestic MCI (md-aMCI). To this end, 30 patients diagnosed with md-aMCI took part in the present study. The participants divided into two groups; one group received conventional face-to-face training and the other group received Telerehabilitation training. Both groups received language training using paper and pencil tasks and cognitive training using the Rehacom software. The training lasted 15 weeks and was delivered twice a week, for 60 minutes per session. The conventional face-to-face mode had a significant impact on cognitive (delayed and working memory, processing speed, executive function, and attention) and language domains (naming, word recognition, and semantic fluency). The telerehabilitation method had a beneficial impact on delayed memory, naming, and semantic fluency. The results of our study provide evidence that both telerehabilitation and face-to-face language and cognitive training seem to have a positive impact in patients with md-aMCI, with face-to-face training improving more domains than telerehabilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Previous studies have reported that widely used tests for aphasia identification are unable to detect the subtle language deficits of left hemisphere brain damaged (LHBD) individuals. Similarly, the language disorders of individuals with right hemisphere brain damage (RHBD) usually remain undetected, due to the lack of any specialized test for the evaluation of their language processing skills. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the language deficits of 80 individuals suffering from the effects of either a LHBD or RHBD stroke, who were diagnosed as having no aphasia or language deficits based on the application of Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination. Their language abilities were examined with the use of the Adults’ Language Abilities Test, which explores morpho-syntactic and semantic phenomena of the Greek language in both the comprehension and production modalities. Results revealed that both groups of stroke survivors performed significantly worse compared to the group of healthy participants. Thus, it appears that the latent aphasia of LHBD and the language deficits of RHBD patients are likely to remain undetected and that patients are at risk of not receiving appropriate treatment if their language abilities are not evaluated by an effective and efficient battery of language tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study was to explore whether Computer-Based Cognitive Training (C-BCT) versus Paper-Pencil Cognitive Training (P-PCT) is more beneficial in improving cognitive and language deficits in Greek patients living with Alzheimer's disease (pwAD). Twenty pwAD were assigned to two groups: (a) the C-BCT group, receiving a computer-based cognitive training program using the RehaCom software, and (b) the P-PCT group, which received cognitive training using paper and pencil. The cognitive training programs lasted 15 weeks and were administered twice a week for approximately one hour per session. The analyses of each group's baseline versus endpoint performance demonstrated that the P-PCT group improved on delayed memory, verbal fluency, attention, processing speed, executive function, general cognitive ability, and activities of daily living. In contrast, the C-BCT group improved on memory (delayed and working), naming, and processing speed. Comparisons between the two groups (C-BCT vs. P-PCT) revealed that both methods had significant effects on patients' cognition, with the P-PCT method transferring the primary cognitive benefits to real-life activities. Our findings indicate that both methods are beneficial in attenuating cognitive and language deficits in pwAD. The need for large-scale neurobehavioral interventions to further clarify this issue, however, remains a priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective The present study reviewed published evidence on the effectiveness of non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) on the cognitive performance of patients with Traumatic brain injury (TBI). Method A systematic search of the PubMed and Google Scholar databases was carried out. Randomized Controlled Studies published before March 2020 were included. Methodological evaluation was performed based on the Risk of Bias Cochrane tool. A total of 10 placebo-controlled studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria and were involved in the qualitative analysis, two assessing NIBS combined with cognitive training (CT) and eight evaluating NIBS alone. Results All but one retrieved article were appraised as of high-risk of bias (one paper was assessed as of unclear-risk owing to considerable underreporting). With the potential exception of attention, our findings were not indicative of a superior efficacy of NIBS-CT to CT alone, regarding the improvement of any of the rest assessed cognitive deficits. Executive function, processing speed, attention, working, and visuospatial memory were only occasionally found to benefit from NIBS alone compared to sham therapy (only one study reported relevant benefits per neuropsychological outcome). Verbal memory and verbal fluency (phonemic-semantic) were consistently found not to benefit from NIBS. Depression measures were the only outcomes associated with a beneficial effect of NIBS in more than one article. Conclusion Our findings did not provide sufficient high-quality evidence to support the exclusive use of NIBS or combined NIBS-CT to improve any impaired cognitive function in TBI patients. Owing to the suboptimum methodological quality of published studies, additional research is of potential value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study was to explore the effects of computer-based multidomain cognitive training program on Greek patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Forty-six patients with MCI were randomly divided into two groups; (a) the training group, which received a computer-based multidomain cognitive training program with the use of the RehaCom software and (b) the control group, which underwent standard-clinical care. The duration of the computer-based training program was 15 weeks, administered twice a week for approximately one hour per session. Analysis of the baseline versus endpoint performance of each group demonstrated that in the control group delayed memory and executive function had deteriorated over the observation period of 15 weeks, while improvement was observed in the training group's performance on delayed memory, word recognition, Boston Naming Test (BNT), Clock Drawing Test (CDT), Semantic Fluency (SF), Trail Making Test-A (TMT-A) and Trail Making Test-B (TMT-B). Comparison between the two groups presented asignificant effect of the intervention for most cognitive domains. These findings are promising for the development of training methods designed to delay cognitive decline in patients with MCI, which is considered to be the prodromal stage of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Melodic intonation therapy (MIT) is one of the most well-known treatment methods which is based on pitch and rhythm and was developed to increase verbal output in adults with non-fluent aphasia. Although MIT has been adapted to several languages, in Greece it is almost unknown. The aim of the proposed study is twofold: (1) to translate and adapt the MIT to the Greek language, and (2) to conduct an experimental study in order to examine the effect of MIT on Greek patients with Broca's aphasia. To this aim, a 64-year-old, right-handed male who had a 6-year primary school education level, no musical abilities and poor performance on the recognition of prosody attended the MIT intervention program almost two and a half years after the event of suffering an ischemic stroke. The MIT intervention was administered three times per week for a 12-week period, in which each session lasted from 30 to 40 min. The patient underwent three assessments all using both the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination–Short Form (BDAE-SF) and brain perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT); (1) before the MIT, (2) immediately after, and (3) 3 months after the completion of MIT. The results from the BDAE-SF revealed an impressive improvement on both trained and prepositional speech production, immediately after the completion of the MIT, and a stable improved performance 3 months after MIT. The SPECT scan revealed reactivation of the perilesional areas of the left hemisphere, and considerably improved perfusion of the frontal lobe, the anterior temporal lobe, and the upper part of the parietal lobe of the right hemisphere. The improvement persisted and even expanded 3 months after MIT. Therefore, MIT is a promising intervention program and its positive effects last for at least 3 months after the completion of the intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A recent systematic review found that language deficits are not very common in individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). However, there are significant gaps in our knowledge about language abilities in MS. For instance, morphosyntactic production has not been explored adequately thus far. This study investigated verb-related morphosyntactic production in MS focusing on Greek, a morphologically rich language. Methods: A sentence completion task tapping into the production of subject–verb agreement, time reference/tense, and grammatical aspect was administered to 39 Greek-speaking individuals with MS [25 individuals with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS group) and 14 individuals with secondary progressive MS (SPMS group)]. The task included only regular verbs. Generalized linear mixed-effects models were used to investigate the ability of individuals with MS to produce the above-mentioned morphosyntactic categories. Results: Overall, the RRMS and SPMS groups performed significantly worse than their matched control groups. Moreover, all four groups performed significantly worse on grammatical aspect than on subject–verb agreement and time reference. The difference between subject–verb agreement and time reference was not significant in any of the four groups. The overall performances of the RRMS and SPMS groups did not differ significantly. Conclusion: Individuals with MS are impaired in verb-related morphosyntactic production. Moreover, the pattern of performance of individuals with MS is identical to that exhibited by neurologically healthy individuals. Thus, the production performance of individuals with MS on verb inflection differs from that of healthy controls quantitatively but not qualitatively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present study is threefold: (a) to explore whether Greek adults, who are non-trained speakers and naïve to the purpose of the study, use distinguishable prosodic cues, while producing subject/object ambiguous sentences, (b) to examine whether the same participants use prosody as an important informative cue, morphosyntax aside, in order to decode such ambiguities and (c) to investigate the linking between comprehension and production and more specifically whether prosodic cues are employed by speakers in production to the same extent as they are by listeners in comprehension. For this purpose a production and an on-line comprehension task were conducted. Results revealed that prosodic cues were used to denote the subject or the object condition, but they were not consistently employed in order for the two to be differentiated. The prosodic patterns which were employed also allowed us to examine the predictions made by three psycholinguistic syntax-prosody mappings. The on-line comprehension task demonstrated that listeners were always sensitive to prosody, even though a preference for the object condition was revealed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose. There is an increasing interest in the effect of nonpharmacological interventions on the course of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The objective of the present study is to determine the benefits of a structured, multidomain, mostly computer-based, cognitive training (MCT) οn the cognitive performance of patients with early-stage AD. Method. Fifty patients with early-stage AD participated in the study. Patients were randomly allocated either to the training program group (n=25) or to a wait list control group (n=25). The training program group received computer-assisted MCT and linguistic exercises utilizing pen and paper supplemented by cognitive-linguistic exercises for homework. The duration of the MCT intervention program was 15 weeks, and it was administered twice a week. Each session lasted for approximately one hour. Objective measures of episodic memory, delayed memory, word recognition, attention, executive function, processing speed, semantic fluency, and naming were assessed at baseline and after the completion of the program in both groups. Results. Analysis showed that in controls, delayed memory and executive function had deteriorated over the observation period of 15 weeks, while the training group improved their performance in word recognition, Boston Naming Test (BNT), semantic fluency (SF), clock-drawing test (CDT), digit span forward (DSF), digit span backward (DSB), trail-making test A (TMT A), and trail-making test B (TMT B). Comparison between the training group and the controls showed that MCT had a significant beneficial effect in delayed memory, naming, semantic fluency, visuospatial ability, executive functions, attention, and processing speed. Conclusions. The study provides evidence of a beneficial effect of MCT with an emphasis on cognitive-language performance of patients with early-stage AD. Considering the limited efficacy of current pharmacological therapies in AD, concurrent computer-based MCT may represent an additional enhancing treatment option in early-stage AD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]