Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine.
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of South Carolina, Columbia.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2024 Aug 5;67(8):2600-2619. doi: 10.1044/2024_JSLHR-23-00439. Epub 2024 Jul 12.
A picture naming test is presented that reveals impairment to specific mechanisms involved in the naming process, using accuracy scores on curated item sets. A series of psychometric validation experiments are reported.
Using a computational model that enables estimation of item difficulty at the lexical and sublexical stages of word retrieval, two complimentary sets of items were constructed that challenge the respective psycholinguistic levels of representation. The difference in accuracy between these item sets yields the relative linguistic impairment (RLI) score. In a cohort of 91 people with chronic left-hemisphere stroke who enrolled in a clinical trial for anomia, we assessed psychometric properties of the RLI score and then used the new scale to make predictions about other language behaviors, lesion distributions, and functional activation during naming.
RLI scores had adequate psychometric properties for clinical significance. RLI scores contained predictive information about spontaneous speech fluency, over and above accuracy. A dissociation was observed between performance on the RLI item sets and performance on the subtests of an independent language battery. Sublexical RLI was significantly associated with apraxia of speech and with lesions encompassing perisylvian regions, while lexical RLI was associated with lesions to deep white matter. The RLI construct was reflected in functional brain activity during naming, independent of overall accuracy, with a respective shift of activation between dorsal and ventral networks responsible for different aspects of word retrieval.
The RLI assessment satisfies the psychometric requirements to serve as a useful clinical measure.
本研究提出了一种图片命名测试，通过对精心挑选的项目集的准确率评分，揭示命名过程中特定机制的损伤。报告了一系列心理测量学验证实验。
使用一种能够在词汇和亚词汇层面上估计单词检索项目难度的计算模型，构建了两个互补的项目集，分别挑战各自的心理语言学代表水平。这两个项目集之间的准确率差异产生相对语言损伤（RLI）评分。在一项 91 名慢性左侧半球中风患者参与的临床试验中，我们评估了 RLI 评分的心理测量学特性，然后使用新的量表对其他语言行为、病变分布和命名时的功能激活进行预测。
RLI 评分具有足够的临床意义的心理测量学特性。RLI 评分包含了关于自发性言语流畅性的预测信息，超过了准确性。在 RLI 项目集的表现和独立语言测试的子测试之间观察到了一种分离。亚词汇 RLI 与言语失用显著相关，与包括周围脑区的病变相关，而词汇 RLI 与深部白质病变相关。RLI 结构反映了命名过程中的功能脑活动，与整体准确性无关，分别激活了负责不同方面词汇检索的背侧和腹侧网络之间的转换。
RLI 评估满足了作为有用的临床测量工具的心理测量学要求。
