Language: Structure, Processing, and Disorders

This theoretical guide for speech-language pathologists, neuropsychologists, neurologists, and cognitive psychologists describes the linguistic and psycholinguistic basis of aphasias that are a result of acquired neurological disease. Caplan first outlines contemporary concepts and models in language processing and then shows in detail how these are related to language disorders. Chapters are organized around basic linguistic processes such as spoken word recognition, semantics, spoken word production, reading and writing of single words, and more complex processes such as sentence production and discourse structures. Caplan's summary of the major concepts and results in both linguistics and psycholinguistics provides a solid basis for understanding current studies of language disorders as well as those likely to be discussed in the future. Considerable emphasis is placed on studies of language processing that measure what representations a subject is computing while he or she is in the middle of accomplishing a language-related task. These "on-line" studies provide the most reliable guide to the nature of many psycholinguistic processes. Throughout the book, Caplan's goal is to present material at an introductory level so that readers can become informed about the work of linguistically and psycholinguistically oriented researchers who study normal and disordered language and put this work to use in clinical practice.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Introduction: language processing and its role in communication; disorders of language processing and hteir functional consequences; the languages; the language code; models of language processing; psycholinguistic analyses of language disorders. Part 2 Recognition of spoken words: the sound structure of words; processing the acoustic signal for phonetic features and phonological segments; auditory word recognition; disturbanes of auditory functioning; disturbances of acoustic-phonetic processing; acoustic-phonetic processing and disturbances of lexical access and comprehension; disturbances of auditory word recognition. Part 3 The meanings of words: the classical view of concepts and challenges to this view; alternative models of concepts; core concepts and identification procedures; modality-specific representations of concepts; semantic deficits. Part 4 Production of spoken words: oral production of words; disturbances of word sound production. Part 5 Reading and writing single words: orthographic representations; processing written language; acquired dyslexias; agraphia; the role of phonological codes in writing sentences; independence of reading and writing; peripheral mechanisms. Part 6 Recognizing and producing morphologically complex words: word formation in English; processing morphological form; disturbances of processing morphologically complex words. Part 7 Sentence comprehension: sentence meaning and its relationship to syntactic structures; alternative accounts of sentence structure; processes involved in sentence comprehension; disorders of sentence comprehension. Part 8 Sentence production: models of sentence production; disorders of sentence production. Part 9 Comprehension and production of discourse: the structure of discourse; processing discourse structures; disorders affecting the production and comprehension of discourse-level structures. Part 10 Brief notes on issues relating to diagnosis and treatment of language disorders: a psycholinguistic approach to the assessment of language disorders; the psycholinguistic assessment of language; the psycholinguistic assessment of language - identification of deficits in language processing components; classification of patients with language disorders; neurological mechanisms and aphasia; the relevance of linguistics and psycholinguistics to therapeutics.

About the Author :
David Caplan is Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Adjunct Associate Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Communication at Boston University, Associate Neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT.

Review :
"I do not know of any other work that approaches the scope and detail of the Caplan book for introductory treatment of contemporary language processing theory in the study of language disorders....This is a very good book, thoughtfully developed for its audience, and it will serve that audience well."--Merrill Garrett, "Contemporary Psychology"