Ditges Ruth, Barbieri Elena, Thompson Cynthia K, Weintraub Sandra, Weiller Cornelius, Mesulam Marek-Marsel, Kümmerer Dorothee, Schröter Nils, Musso Mariacristina
Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Freiburg, Breisacherstrasse 64, 79106 Freiburg, Germany.
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
Brain Sci. 2021 Apr 8;11(4):474. doi: 10.3390/brainsci11040474.
Grammar provides the framework for understanding and producing language. In aphasia, an acquired language disorder, grammatical deficits are diversified and widespread. However, the few assessments for testing grammar in the German language do not consider current linguistic, psycholinguistic, and functional imaging data, which have been shown to be crucial for effective treatment. This study developed German language versions of the Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences (NAVS-G) and the Northwestern Anagram Test (NAT-G) to examine comprehension and production of verbs, controlling for the number and optionality of verb arguments, and sentences with increasing syntactic complexity. The NAVS-G and NAT-G were tested in 27 healthy participants, 15 right hemispheric stroke patients without aphasia, and 15 stroke patients with mild to residual aphasia. Participants without aphasia showed near-perfect performance, with the exception of (object) relative sentences, where accuracy was associated with educational level. In each patient with aphasia, deficits in more than one subtest were observed. The within and between population-groups logistic mixed regression analyses identified significant impairments in processing syntactic complexity at the verb and sentence levels. These findings indicate that the NAVS-G and NAT-G have potential for testing grammatical competence in (German) stroke patients.
语法为理解和生成语言提供了框架。在失语症（一种后天性语言障碍）中，语法缺陷多种多样且普遍存在。然而，德语中用于测试语法的评估工具寥寥无几，且未考虑到当前的语言学、心理语言学和功能成像数据，而这些数据已被证明对有效治疗至关重要。本研究开发了德语版的西北动词和句子评估量表（NAVS-G）以及西北字谜测试（NAT-G），以检验动词的理解和生成能力，同时控制动词论元的数量和可选性，以及句法复杂度不断增加的句子。NAVS-G和NAT-G在27名健康参与者、15名无失语症的右半球中风患者以及15名轻度至残余失语症的中风患者中进行了测试。无失语症的参与者表现近乎完美，但（宾语）关系句除外，其准确性与教育水平相关。在每一位失语症患者中，均观察到不止一个子测试存在缺陷。群体内部和群体之间的逻辑混合回归分析确定了在动词和句子层面处理句法复杂度方面存在显著损伤。这些发现表明，NAVS-G和NAT-G在测试（德语）中风患者的语法能力方面具有潜力。
