Yoshihata Hiroyo

We report a case of congenital prosopagnosia in a woman in her 30s. The individual, who holds a university degree and works in education, sought medical attention after experiencing difficulty remembering people's faces following a job change. An MRI scan of her head revealed no obvious brain damage and neuropsychological tests showed no obvious decline in general higher brain function. However, when naming facial and head patterns in the Visual Perception Test for Agnosia Famous Face Test version 2 (VPTA-FFT ver.2), her results had a discrepancy of more than +2SD compared to healthy peers. In a task to memorize unknown faces, she did not respond smoothly and remembered clothes rather than faces. She did not have autism, which is associated with congenital decline in facial recognition. Therefore, we diagnosed this case as congenital prosopagnosia. When supporting individuals with congenital prosopagnosia who may experience challenges in daily life, it is important for speech-language-hearing therapists to collaborate with medical doctors to conduct early evaluation and diagnosis, and to provide guidance on appropriate compensatory strategies.

Speech Pathology

Objective: We investigated temporal changes in the types of errors that occurred in a word-picture matching task in patients with acute aphasia. Materials and Methods: Twenty patients with aphasia participated in this study. We tested the participants at two time points (admission and discharge) on a novel spoken word-picture matching task involving varying semantic relationships between the target and a set of distracters. Results: The results showed a reduction over time in the percentage of incorrect errors, and an increase over time in the percentage of errors that involved items semantically related to the target item. Conclusions: A simple method for examining the types of errors made by patients with aphasia can give valuable information about the nature of their auditory comprehension deficits.

失語症者の自己報告アウトカム測定ツールであるJAIQ-21について，内容紹介と失語症者への試用結果を報告した。

アルツハイマー型認知症の人に対するメモリーブックを用いたグループ訓練の効果について報告した。

失語症者のコミュニケーションに関する評価法を紹介した後，イギリスで作成されている当事者が回答する質問紙の概要と，イギリスで行われた第１回失語症カンファレンスの様子を報告した。

失語症の基本的知識の続きとして，評価方法とリスク管理の方法について述べた。

失語症の基本的知識として，失語タイプの実際と変性疾患に伴う進行性の失語症状について記した。

失語症の基本的知識として，症状や失語タイプを見分けるポイントを記した。

項目間の意味的関連性を統制した非言語性意味判断課題を用いて，失語症者の意味処理能力を検討した。

失語症者に実施した携帯メール入力訓練の方法とその経過を説明した。

失語症訓練の基本的視点と代表的な訓練を紹介した後，失語症者とのコミュニケーションのとり方について説明した。

重度失語症者を対象に，日常生活上のコミュケーション場面を分析し，会話パートナーに求められるコミュニケーション態度などを検討した。

高齢者施設における利用者の入所時に,短時間でコミュニケーション及び嚥下の状況を簡便に把握することができる「高齢者用コミュニケーション機能スクリーニング検査」を開発した.検査結果より得られた情報を他職種に伝達するための「報告書」と併せて,その有用性をアンケート調査により検討した.アンケートは19施設の利用者345名(男性144名,女性200名.45〜108歳,平均年齢78.5歳)を対象に実施した.その結果,本検査はおおむね妥当性,信頼性を備えていることが明らかになったが,その一方で構音・嚥下の基準値や報告書の形式について再検討の必要性も示唆された

失読症者に，試作した読み障害を代償するためのインターネット閲覧ソフトを試用してもらい，ソフト操作の学習方法の有効性を検討した。

失語症者のimpairmentとdisabilityレベルの経時的関連性について，SLTAとCADLを指標に検討した。

The purpose of this study was to investigate the acquisition and generalization of mode interchange skills in people with severe aphasia. The experiment had three phases. In the first, three subjects were trained to acquire gestures for and to draw items used in the experiment. In the second phase, subjects were trained to change the communication mode, that is, drawing to gesture or gesture to drawing, in a 'request' situation using a single-subject design. The third phase was a probe for generalization. Subjects acquired both gestures and drawings, however none used these mode interchange skills spontaneously and needed additional training using prompt signs to signal mode interchange. Further the responses of communication partners were noted to determine the use of mode interchange skills. To increase non-verbal communication flexibility, it appeared to be important that partners wait for another response by the subject and thus provide the subject with an opportunity to use the mode interchange skills.

This paper reports on the cognitive functions of a case with associative visual agnosia following multiple cerebral infarctions. The patient was a 58-year old right handed man. The results of several perceptual and cognitive tests indicated that his apperception was preserved because he could accurately copy line drawings of objects or letters and could correctly match objects. He did not have cognitive disturbances in auditory and tactile modalities. However, in the visual modality he showed cognitive disturbances regardless of whether the stimulus was real objects, line drawings of objects, colors, faces or letters. This means that the patient had object agnosia, color naming disturbance, prospagnosia and alexia without agraphia. His symptoms were also different from optic aphasia, because of his inability to point to an object named by the examiner, to demonstrate how to use objects and to categorize objects. Based on these observations, the patient was considered to be a case of associative visual agnosia.<br>A medial aspect of the bilateral occipital lobe was identified as a major lesion in the patient. Compared with lesions of associative visual agnosia previously reported, it is a unique feature that the lesion of this patient in the right occipital lobe was relatively small.