Morelli Claudia A, Altmann Lori J P, Kendall Diane, Fischler Ira, Heilman Kennneth M
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
J Commun Disord. 2011 Jul-Aug;44(4):413-28. doi: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2011.01.006. Epub 2011 Mar 2.
Individuals with probable Alzheimer disease (pAD) are frequently impaired at picture naming. This study examined whether a semantic elaboration task would facilitate naming in pAD, and whether training either semantically typical or atypical stimulus items facilitated generalized improvement in picture naming and category generation tasks.
Twelve adults with mild-moderate pAD participated in the study. Participants performed an experimental semantic elaboration training task using a subset of typical items from one category and atypical items from another category. The third category, acted as a control (i.e., no items were trained). The study assessed change in category generation and a picture naming within the three target categories.
Individuals showed significantly improved category generation and naming, but changes were not limited to trained categories. Naming of trained atypical items improved significantly. Participants showed significantly improved naming of untrained typical items from categories trained with typical items.
Semantic elaboration of typical items within a semantic category can lead to generalized improvement in other typical items in the category in mild-moderate pAD. This is consistent with theories postulating that typical category items share overlapping distributed representations. Further exploration of the effects of semantic elaboration on word-finding in pAD is warranted, especially the possibility of within-category generalization.
患有可能的阿尔茨海默病（pAD）的个体在图片命名方面常常受损。本研究考察了语义细化任务是否会促进pAD患者的命名，以及训练语义典型或非典型刺激项目是否会促进图片命名和类别生成任务的普遍改善。
12名患有轻度至中度pAD的成年人参与了该研究。参与者使用来自一个类别的典型项目子集和来自另一个类别的非典型项目执行了一项实验性语义细化训练任务。第三个类别用作对照（即未对项目进行训练）。该研究评估了三个目标类别中类别生成和图片命名的变化。
个体的类别生成和命名有显著改善，但变化并不局限于训练的类别。训练的非典型项目的命名有显著改善。参与者对用典型项目训练的类别中未训练的典型项目的命名有显著改善。
在轻度至中度pAD中，对语义类别中的典型项目进行语义细化可导致该类别中其他典型项目的普遍改善。这与假设典型类别项目共享重叠分布式表征的理论一致。有必要进一步探索语义细化对pAD中找词的影响，特别是类别内泛化的可能性。
