ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The main goals were to determine the effectiveness of two commonly used communication-related Quality of Life (QoCL) measures, and the impact of aphasia-related factors on quality of life (QoL) and QoCL in persons with aphasia (PWAs). METHOD: Twenty-one PWAs ranging from 47 to 91 years of age with post-onset periods of 2 months to 14 years were tested using standardized and criterion-measure tools to assess their language and cognitive functions, QoL, and QoCL. Additionally, participants completed a demographics questionnaire, which also included information on their stroke and the kinds of therapies they had received. Assessments were conducted over two sessions with randomized order of test administrations to control fatigue and order effects. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS: Correlation-matrix was used to determine the strength of relations between test measures. The impact of QoL related factors (viz., aphasia severity, cognitive functioning, time post-onset, and therapy received) on QoCL was examined using ANOVAs. The ASHA Quality of Communication Life Scale (ASHA-QCL) had more significant correlations with other QoL measures than the ASHA-Functional Assessment of Communication Skills (ASHA-FACS). Aphasia severity, cognitive deficits, and therapy received contributed significantly to QoL and QoCL in PWAs. CONCLUSIONS: Evaluating overall QoL may not fully reveal the QoCL in PWAs. Measuring QoCL specifically is crucial in aphasia interventions, and it is equally important to use sensitive tools that can capture the QoCL effectively. ASHA-QCL was more effective than ASHA-FACS in capturing the QoCL. QoCL must be considered even when working with PWAs with severe aphasias and/or mild cognitive deficits.
ABSTRACT
The present study examines the influence of language proficiency and language combination on bilingual lexical access using category fluency in 109 healthy speakers. Participants completed a category fluency task in each of their languages in three main categories (animals, clothing, and food), each with two subcategories, as well as a language use questionnaire assessing their proficiency. Five language combinations were examined (Hindi-English, Kannada-English, Mandarin-English, Spanish-English, and Turkish-English). Multivariate analyses of variance revealed that the average number of correct items named in the category fluency task across the three main categories varied across the different groups only in English and not the other language. Further, results showed that language exposure composite (extracted from the questionnaire using a principal component analysis) significantly affected the average number of items named across the three main categories. Overall, these results demonstrate the effects of particular language combinations on bilingual lexical access and provide important insights into the role of proficiency on access.
