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Grammatical Ability Predicts Relative Action Naming Impairment in Primary Progressive Aphasia

Rhonda B. Friedman1, Sarah F. Snider1, Shelby McGowan1, Donna C. Tippett2, Argye Hillis2 and Aaron M. Meyer1*
  • 1 Georgetown University Medical Center, United States
  • 2 Johns Hopkins University, United States

Findings from several studies indicate that participants with nfvPPA have greater accuracy for object naming than action naming, while those with svPPA have greater accuracy for action naming than object naming (e.g., Hillis et al., 2006; Thompson et al., 2012). In contrast, Marcotte et al. (2014) and Riello et al. (2018) found that neither participants with nfvPPA nor participants with svPPA showed a significant difference in accuracy between object naming and action naming. Some of these studies (e.g., Riello et al.) did not provide information about agrammatism. In others (e.g., Thompson et al.), persons without agrammatism were not included in their nfvPPA cohort. The current classification of nfvPPA (Gorno-Tempini et al., 2011) includes persons with either agrammatism, apraxia of speech, or both. Therefore, the relationship between grammatical ability and action naming cannot be accurately assessed on the basis of these studies. Furthermore, impaired grammar may occur within the context of a different subtype diagnosis, especially as the syndrome progresses. Thus, it remains unclear if action naming is more closely related to grammatical ability or to a diagnosis of nfvPPA. The goal of the current study is to test the hypothesis that relative action naming impairment is associated with grammatical ability in PPA, regardless of subtype. Participants included 15 individuals with lvPPA, 11 with nfvPPA, 7 with svPPA, and 1 with Mixed PPA. Participants completed the Boston Naming Test (Kaplan, Goodglass, & Weintraub, 2001), the Action Naming subtest of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (Goodglass, Kaplan, & Barresi, 2001), the Northwestern Anagram Test (NAT; Weintraub et al., 2009), which was used to measure grammatical ability, the Pyramids and Palm Trees test (Howard & Patterson, 1992), which was used to measure semantic processing, and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (Nasreddine et al., 2005), which was used to measure cognitive impairment. Z-scores for the two naming tasks were calculated based on normative data from unimpaired controls. For each participant with PPA, the relative action naming impairment was calculated by subtracting the object naming z-score from the action naming z-score. Linear regression analysis was then used to evaluate the role of grammatical ability as a predictor of relative action naming impairment, while controlling for age, education, cognitive impairment, and semantic impairment. The interaction between grammatical ability and each control variable was also examined. The results indicated that grammatical ability was a significant predictor of relative action naming impairment (b = .632, p = .007; see Figure 1 for the correlation), while none of the control variables was a significant predictor. However, the interaction between grammatical impairment and semantic impairment was a significant predictor (b = -.101, p = .043). Participants with both grammatical impairment and semantic impairment typically had relative action naming impairment, while participants who had semantic impairment but not grammatical impairment had relative object naming impairment. The findings of this study suggest that relative action naming impairment can occur within any subtype of PPA, and it is most likely to occur when an individual has both grammatical impairment and semantic impairment.

Figure 1
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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under award number R01DC011317.

References

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Keywords: Primary progressive aphasia (ppa), Noun naming, Verb naming, grammar, syntax, semantics

Conference: Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting, Macau, Macao, SAR China, 27 Oct - 29 Oct, 2019.

Presentation Type: Poster presentation

Topic: Not eligible for student award

Citation: Friedman RB, Snider SF, McGowan S, Tippett DC, Hillis A and Meyer AM (2019). Grammatical Ability Predicts Relative Action Naming Impairment in Primary Progressive Aphasia. Front. Hum. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2019.01.00071

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Received: 05 May 2019; Published Online: 09 Oct 2019.

* Correspondence: Dr. Aaron M Meyer, Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington D.C., District of Columbia, 20057, United States, am2292@georgetown.edu