Acquired language disorder; Agrammatism; French; Neurodegenerative diseases; Speech and language pathology; Syntax
Abstract :
[en] The ability to understand and produce syntactically accurate sentences is fundamental for effective communication. Syntactic deficits are a common consequence of acquired language disorders in adults, whether they result from stroke, traumatic brain injury, or neurodegeneratives conditions. These deficits are heterogenous in nature and vary in severity, significantly impacting an individual's daily interactions. Given this impact, assessment and intervention on syntactic deficits by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are crucial. This study aimed to document the clinical practices of French-speaking SLPs regarding syntactic deficits in adults with acquired language disorders. An online survey comprising 48 questions covering assessment and intervention practices, syntactic knowledge, and professional training and experience was distributed. A total of 112 SLPs from Quebec, France, and French-speaking regions of Belgium and Switzerland completed the survey. Findings revealed that over 66% of respondents assess syntactic deficits and >63% of them provide intervention. Practices range from formal to informal approaches. However, several barriers hinder optimal care, notably the lack of validated assessment and intervention tools in French and limited syntactic knowledge among clinicians. Future studies should prioritize the validation of material in French. Additionally, enhanced training in syntax should be integrated in both initial education and continuing professional development for SLPs. Improving the management of syntactic holds significant potential to improve the quality of life of affected individuals.
Disciplines :
Speech and language therapy
Author, co-author :
Poirier, Sarah-Ève ; School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Laval University, Quebec, QC, Canada, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation and Social Integration (Cirris), CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale, Quebec, QC, Canada
Fossard, Marion; Institute of Logopedic Sciences, Faculty of letters and Humanities, Neuchâtel University, Switzerland
Sainson, Claire; CogNLab, Annebault 14430, France
Poncelet, Martine ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Logopédie > Neuropsychologie du langage et des apprentissages
Gillet, Sophie ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Logopédie > Neuropsychologie du langage et des apprentissages
Monetta, Laura ; School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Laval University, Quebec, QC, Canada, Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation and Social Integration (Cirris), CIUSSS de la Capitale-Nationale, Quebec, QC, Canada. Electronic address: laura.monetta@fmed.ulaval.ca
Language :
English
Title :
Assessment and treatment of acquired syntactic deficits: A survey of clinical practice in French speaking populations.
Ardila, A., Grammar in the brain: Two grammar subsystems and two agrammatic types of aphasia. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 58, 2021, 100960, 10.1016/j.jneuroling.2020.100960.
Azios, J.H., Strong, K.A., Archer, B., Douglas, N.F., Simmons-Mackie, N., Worrall, L., Friendship matters: A research agenda for aphasia. Aphasiology 36:3 (2022), 317–336, 10.1080/02687038.2021.1873908.
Baglione, H., Coulombe, V., Poirier, S.È., Monetta, L., Rééducation de la compréhension asyntaxique chez les personnes aphasiques post-accident vasculaire cérébral: Une revue systématique de la littérature. Gériatrie et Psychologie Neuropsychiatrie du Vieillissement 20:4 (2022), 483–496, 10.1684/pnv.2022.1069.
Beeke, S., Maxim, J., Wilkinson, R., Rethinking agrammatism: Factors affecting the form of language elicited via clinical test procedures. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 22:4–5 (2008), 317–323, 10.1080/02699200801918911.
Béland, R., Lecours, A.R., The mt-86 β aphasia battery: A subset of normative data in relation to age and level of school education. Aphasiology 4:5 (1990), 439–462, 10.1080/02687039008248786.
Bernaert-Paul, B., & Simonin, M. (2011). T.E.M.F. - Test d'expression morphosyntaxique fine (Solal).
Bézy, C., Renard, A., Pariente, J., GRÉMOTS: Évaluation du langage dans les pathologies neurodégénératives. 2016, De Boeck Supérieur.
Bisson, J., Protocole d’évaluation de la communication chez la clientèle adulte traumatisée craniocérébrale. 2012, Institut de réadaptation en déficience physique de Québec (IRDPQ).
Bock, K., Levelt, W.J., Language production: Grammatical encoding. Gernsbacher, M.A., (eds.) Handbook of psycholinguistics, 1994, Academic Press, 945–984.
Bourgeois, M.È., Fossard, M., Monetta, L., Bergeron, A., Perron, M., & Martel-Sauvageau, V. (2019). Développement, validation et normalisation de la batterie d’évaluation de la compréhension syntaxique: Une collaboration Québec-Suisse. 43(2).
Brimo, D., Melamed, T., Pre-professional students’ explicit syntax knowledge: Preliminary analysis. Child Language Teaching and Therapy 33:3 (2017), 255–266, 10.1177/0265659017717845.
Byng, S., Nickels, L., Black, M., Replicating therapy for mapping deficits in agrammatism: Remapping the deficit?. Aphasiology 8:4 (1994), 315–341.
Caramazza, A., Miozzo, M., The relation between syntactic and phonological knowledge in lexical access : Evidence from the `tip-of-the-tongue’ phenomenon. Cognition, 64(3), 1997, 309343, 10.1016/S0010-0277(97)00031-0.
Cavanaugh, R., Dickey, M.W., Hula, W.D., Fromm, D., Golovin, J., Wambaugh, J., Fergadiotis, G., Evans, W.S., Determinants of multilevel discourse outcomes in Anomia treatment for aphasia. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 67(9), 2024, 30943112, 10.1044/2024_JSLHR-24-00030.
Coulombe, V., Fossard, M., Monetta, L., BEPS: Development, validation, and normative data of a sentence production test in French. Applied Neuropsychology: Adult 28:4 (2021), 378–390, 10.1080/23279095.2019.1640699.
Dell, G.S., A spreading-activation theory of retrieval in sentence production. Psychological Review, 93(3), 1986, 283321.
Dignam, J.K., Harvey, S., Monnelly, K., Dipper, L., Hoover, E., Kirmess, M., Mohr, B., Visch-Brink, E., Wallace, S.E., Rose, M.L., Development of an evidence-based aphasia therapy implementation tool: An international survey of speech pathologists’ access to and use of aphasia therapy resources. Aphasiology 38:6 (2024), 1051–1068, 10.1080/02687038.2023.2253994.
Doogan, C., Al Balushi, R., Gooding, B., Crinion, J., Leff, A., What do people with aphasia want from the queen square intensive comprehensive aphasia programme and do they achieve it? A quantitative and qualitative analysis of their short, medium, long-term and economic goals. Aphasiology 37:10 (2023), 1661–1678, 10.1080/02687038.2022.2118518.
Edmonds, L.A., Mammino, K., Ojeda, J., Effect of verb network strengthening treatment (VNeST) in persons with aphasia: Extension and replication of previous findings. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 23(2), 2014, S312, 10.1044/2014_AJSLP-13-0098 Ariane Articles.
Eysenbach, G., Improving the quality of web surveys: The checklist for reporting results of internet E-surveys (CHERRIES). Journal of Medical Internet Research, 6(3), 2004, e34, 10.2196/jmir.6.3.e34.
Faroqi-Shah, Y., Virion, C.R., Constraint-induced language therapy for agrammatism: Role of grammaticality constraints. Aphasiology 23:7–8 (2009), 977–988, 10.1080/02687030802642036.
Fink, R.B., Schwartz, M.F., Rochon, E., Myers, J.L., Socolof, G.S., Bluestone, R., Syntax stimulation revisited: An analysis of generalization of treatment effects. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 4:4 (1995), 99–104, 10.1044/1058-0360.0404.99 Ariane Articles.
Gatignol, P., Jutteau, S., Oudry, M., & Weill-Chounlamountry, A. (2012). Bilan informatisé d'Aphasie (BIA). Ortho Edition. https://www.orthoedition.com/evaluations/bia-747.
Harris, P.A., Taylor, R., Minor, B.L., Elliott, V., Fernandez, M., O'Neal, L., McLeod, L., Delacqua, G., Delacqua, F., Kirby, J., Duda, S.N., The REDCap consortium: Building an international community of software platform partners. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 95, 2019, 103208, 10.1016/j.jbi.2019.103208.
Herbert, R., Gregory, E., Best, W., Syntactic versus lexical therapy for anomia in acquired aphasia : Differential effects on narrative and conversation. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 49(2), 2014, 162173, 10.1111/1460-6984.12054.
Koukoulioti, V., Stavrakaki, S., Mamouli, D., Ioannidis, P., Production of complex sentences in the semantic variant of primary progressive aphasia: Neuropsychological, clinical, neuroanatomical and demographic correlates. Applied Sciences, 14(13), 2024, 5390, 10.3390/app14135390.
Lê, K., Mozeiko, J., Traumatic brain injury. Damico, J.S., Müller, N., Ball, M.J., (eds.) The handbook of language and speech disorders, 1st ed, 2021, Wiley, 590–612, 10.1002/9781119606987.ch25.
Levelt, W.J.M., Models of word production. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 3(6), 1999, 223232, 10.1016/S1364-6613(99)01319-4.
Love, T., Swinney, D., Walenski, M., Zurif, E., How left inferior frontal cortex participates in syntactic processing: Evidence from aphasia☆. Brain and Language 107:3 (2008), 203–219, 10.1016/j.bandl.2007.11.004.
Mehri, A., Jalaie, S., A Systematic review on methods of evaluate sentence production deficits in agrammatic aphasia patients: Validity and reliability issues. Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, 2014.
Miyahara, F., Word order typology of english and japanese: The direction of syntactic organization and a common structural principle (1) the word order and the position of the head. 1988, The Group of Linguistic Studies College of General Education, Kyushu University, 10.15017/6796249.
Monnelly, K., Marshall, J., Dipper, L., Cruice, M., Intensive and comprehensive aphasia therapy—A survey of the definitions, practices and views of speech and language therapists in the United Kingdom. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders 58:6 (2023), 2077–2102, 10.1111/1460-6984.12918.
OOAQ. (2025). Pourquoi consulter un orthophoniste? Ordre des orthophonistes et audiologistes du québec. https://www.ooaq.qc.ca/consulter/orthophoniste/pourquoi-consulter-orthophoniste/.
Petitpain, A., Brabant-Thery, J., Patin, C., Ott, L., Basirat, A., Status of prosody in the practices of speech-language pathologists in France: A survey on theoretical and clinical dimensions. Journal of Communication Disorders, 107, 2024, 106404, 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2023.106404.
Pillon, A., L'évaluation des troubles de la production et de la compréhension des phrases Seron Linden, Van Der, (eds.) Traité de neuropsychologie clinique de l'adulte, Tome 1, 2014 De Boeck-Solal Paris 321 337.
Poirier, S.È., Fossard, M., Monetta, L., The efficacy of treatments for sentence production deficits in aphasia: A systematic review. Aphasiology 37:1 (2023), 122–142, 10.1080/02687038.2021.1983152.
Python, G., Rééduquer la compréhension asyntaxique à l'aide d'une Thérapie du Mapping Informatisée. Aphasie und verwandte Gebiete 1 (2011), 21–39.
Python, G., Bischof, S., Probst, M., Laganaro, M., Élaboration et normalisation d'un test informatisé de compréhension syntaxique en français. Revue de Neuropsychologie, 4(3), 2012, 206, 10.3917/rne.043.0206.
Raymer, A.M., Roitsch, J., Word retrieval treatments in aphasia : A survey of professional practice. Aphasiology, 37(7), 2023, 954979, 10.1080/02687038.2022.2063791.
Rochon, E., Laird, L., Bose, A., Scofield, J., Mapping therapy for sentence production impairments in nonfluent aphasia. Neuropsychological Rehabilitation 15:1 (2005), 1–36, 10.1080/09602010343000327 Ariane Articles.
Rose, M., Ferguson, A., Power, E., Togher, L., Worrall, L., Aphasia rehabilitation in Australia: Current practices, challenges and future directions. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 16:2 (2014), 169–180, 10.3109/17549507.2013.794474.
Rousseaux, M., Dei Cas, P., Gossery, S., Jaman, C., Barbaut, J., Level, L., Le langage élaboré chez les patients traumatisés crâniens. Annals of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, 56(S1), 2013, 258.
Saffran, E.M., Schwartz, M.F., Fink, R., Myers, J., Martin, N., Mapping therapy: An approach to remediating agrammatic sentence comprehension and production. Aphasia Treatment: Current Approaches and Research Opportunities, 1992, 77–90 Bethseda NIDCD, Monograph.
Salis, C., Hwang, F., Howard, D., Lallini, N., Short-term and working memory treatments for improving sentence comprehension in aphasia: A review and a replication study. Seminars in Speech and Language 38:01 (2017), 029–039, 10.1055/s-0036-1597262.
Schaffner, E., Schneider, L., Fossard, M., Efficacité d'un traitement ciblant la mémoire de travail verbale pour améliorer la compréhension orale de phrases chez une personne avec aphasie de conduction: Une étude de cas unique. TRANEL 76 (2022), 1–20.
Thompson, C.K., Riley, E.A., Den Ouden, D.B., Meltzer-Asscher, A., Lukic, S., Training verb argument structure production in agrammatic aphasia: Behavioral and neural recovery patterns. Cortex; A Journal Devoted to the Study of the Nervous System and Behavior 49:9 (2013), 2358–2376, 10.1016/j.cortex.2013.02.003 Ariane Articles.
Thompson, C.K., Shapiro, L.P., Kiran, S., & Sobecks, J. (2007). The role of syntactic complexity in treatment of sentence deficits in agrammatic aphasia: The complexity account of treatment efficacy (CATE).
Wallace, S.E., Patterson, J., Purdy, M., Knollman-Porter, K., Coppens, P., Auditory comprehension Interventions for people with aphasia: A scoping review. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 31:5S (2022), 2404–2420, 10.1044/2022_AJSLP-21-00297.
Webster, J., Gordon, B., Contrasting therapy effects for verb and sentence processing difficulties: A discussion of what worked and why. Aphasiology 23:10 (2009), 1231–1251, 10.1080/02687030802246291.
Webster, J., Morris, J., Franklin, S., Effects of therapy targeted at verb retrieval and the realisation of the predicate argument structure: A case study. Aphasiology 19:8 (2005), 748–764, 10.1080/02687030500166957 Ariane Articles.
Weinrich, M., Shelton, J.R., Cox, D.M., Mccall, D., Remediating production of tense morphology improves verb retrieval in chronic aphasia. Brain and Language 58:1 (1997), 23–45, 10.1006/brln.1997.1757 Ariane Articles.
Fossard, M., Schaffner, E., & Auclair-Ouellet, N. (2022). Aspect réceptif de la syntaxe. In Sainson, Bolloré, & Trauchessec (eds), Neurologie et orthophonie, Tome 1 (pp. 113-136).De Boeck Supérieur.
Monetta, L., Fossard, M., & Poirier, S.-E. (2022) La prise en soins de la production syntaxique. In Sainson, Bolloré, & Trauchessec (Eds), Neurologie et orthophonie, Tome 2 (pp. 181-204). De Boeck Supérieur.
