Project objectives
The purpose of this project is to determine whether patients with acquired language deficits and those with cognitive deterioration due to neurodegeneration have deficits in comprehension of expressions with figurative meaning, e.g. proverbs and idioms.
Gaining new insights on how different types of patients comprehend figurative language may inform development of new assessment tools, which in turn may lead to better treatments of language deficits.
Recruitment
We are now recruiting participants for the study with the following criteria:
Adults with one of these diagnoses:
- Non-fluent aphasia after a stroke
- Mild cognitive difficulties
- Alzheimer's disease
Healthy adults without these diagnoses in the age group 65-80 as controls.
All participants must meet the following requirements:
- The person must have competence to consent.
- The person speaks fluent Norwegian or spoke it until diagnosis.
- The person has no other neurological or psychiatric diagnoses.
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The person is not taking any medication that may make them lethargic, tired or very excited during participation.
Do you want to participate? Want to know more?
Please contact Research Assistants Silvia Allegretta: 92 94 98 89/ silviaal@uio.no or Sarah Killengreen on mobile: 984 01 265 or by email: sjkillen@uio.no.
You can also contact project manager Vanja Kljajevic in English on telephone 22 84 42 60 or email: vanjakl@uio.no.
Participation entails
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Two meetings lasting approximately 1 hour each
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A project member will meet you somewhere that suits you or on our premises at the Department of Special Needs Education, Helga Engs hus.
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The tasks assess comprehension of language and various aspects of cognition.
Project background
Proverbs are part of everyday language. Proverbs and idioms are still special, because you say one thing but really mean something else. For example, the saying "The grass is always greener on the other side" means that a person believes that conditions are better elsewhere than where they are. In this study, we want to investigate how people with different diagnoses understand expressions such as proverbs and idioms.
Method
In this study, we investigate comprehension of proverbs in adult speakers of Norwegian. In addition to this main goal, we also administer a selection of tests for assessment of language and cognition as evaluative measures of the study.
We look for participants with the following characteristics:
- Persons with post-stroke non-fluent aphasia
- Patients with a diagnosis of Mild Cognitive Disorder (MCI)
- Patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD)
- Healthy controls, i.e. persons without any of the above diagnoses and without any diseases/conditions that affect language and thinking.
The study was approved by the Central Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics (REK) and SIKT.
Findings
The results will form the basis for the development of better assessment tools for comprehension deficits in different patient groups in the future.