Model of Auditory Comprehension of Spoken Words

Question 1

What are the processes in the Kaye et al., model involved in spoken word comprehension? Briefly explain what they do

Answer 1

Acoustic Analysis - identifies speech sounds by analysing the string of sounds heard
Phonological Input Lexicon - a store of auditory word recognition units: accesses auditory word forms via recognisable ‘codes’
Semantic System - a store of word meanings activated in response to word recognition

Auditory to Phonological Conversion: bypasses the lexicons

Question 2

What is a deficit in the AA called, and what would typically be spared/impaired in this disorder if ISOLATED impairment?

Answer 2

Word sound deafness:
- impaired phoneme discrimination
- impaired repetition of words and non-words
- impaired auditory lexical decision
- impaired spoken word picture matching

Question 3

What is a deficit in the POL called, and what would typically be spared/impaired in this disorder if ISOLATED impairment?

Answer 3

Word form deafness:
- spared phoneme discrimination
- spared repetition of words and nonwords
- impaired auditory lexical decision
- impaired spoken word picture matching

Question 4

What is a deficit in the POL-> SS access called, and what would typically be spared/impaired in this disorder if ISOLATED impairment?

Answer 4

Word Meaning Deafness:
- spared phoneme discrimination
- spared repetition of words and nonwords
- spared auditory lexical decision
- impaired spoken word picture matching
- spared written word picturing matching

Question 5

List some areas of assessment you could use to determine impairment at the AA

Answer 5

• auditory discrimination of nonword minimal pairs
• auditory discrimination of real word minimal pairs
• auditory discrimination of real word maximal pairs

Question 6

List some areas of assessment you could use to determine if impairment at the PIL

Answer 6

• repetition of real and words if unable to repeat nonwords
• identification of spoken words using phonological distractors (written and picture response modalities)
• picture verification of words (phonological real word and nonword distractors)

Question 7

List some areas of assessment you could use to determine if impairment at the PIL-> SS access

Answer 7

• compare written and auditory comprehension of words

Question 8

List some therapy ideas for treating the AA

Answer 8

1. word picture matching
2. phoneme selection
3. yes/no judgements
4. identification of ordinal position of head phoneme via pointing to ‘blocks’
5. identification of specified phoneme/word in a hear series
6. same/different judgements
7. identification of auditory changes in a segmented word