Multilingual

Aphasia
Rosie Alig, Brian Casasnovas,
Alison Douglas and Catherine
Felicetti
Rates of Bilingualism

21% of the U.S. population

> 50% of the world’s population

US Census Bureau, 2015

Grosjean, 2010
Declarative Procedural Memory Model
Declarative memory: memories that are explicitly stored and recalled

Procedural memory: is the unconscious memory of skills and how to do things

Second Language Acquisition:

Declarative Procedural
Memory Memory

Ijalba, Olber, & Chengappa, 2006

Bilingual Inhibitory Control Model
Language switching, is the ability to activate and inhibit

languages based on the social situation.

Bilinguals can determine and control which language should

be activated and which language should be inhibited at any

given time

Ansaldo et al., 2008

Ijalba, Olber, & Chengappa, 2006
Background: “Pitres’ Polyglots”

Pitres (1895; as cited in Paradis, 1983) made observations about language loss and
language recovery in a small subset of the multilingual population

→ Proposed a systematic process of language reacquisition

→ Not ‘Organic destruction’ of ‘specific language centers’ but a disruption

in ‘solidly fixed associations’
Pitres’ 5 steps of language reacquisition
1) Total loss of ability to understand and/or speak any
language(s)
2) Gradual return of ability to understand most familiar
language
3) Return of ability to speak most familiar language
4) Return of ability to understand the other language(s) known
by the multilingual speaker
5) Return of ability to speak this/these language(s)
Expansion of Pitres’ work

Diversity in the multilingual population

Diversity in patterns of language reacquisition

Paradis’ Patterns of Recovery
→ Paradis (1987; as cited in Marrero, Golden, and Espe-Pfeifer, 2002) suggested SIX patterns of
language recovery:

1) *Parallel*
2) Differential
3) Successive
4) Selective
5) Mixed
6) Antagonistic
Today’s focus

Differential Recovery
Factors involved in differential recovery
Motivation
Age at stroke
Orthography

Ribot: primacy principle Method of Acquisition

Pitres: familiarity

Aphasia type
Cognitive Control
gato cat
 “Control is presumed to be more
effortful when a person has to use a
less active or proficient language”
(Abutalebi et. al, 2009)
Cognitive Control Mechanism
Domain Specific General
Cognitive Control Mechanism Cognitive Control Mechanism

● Bilingual individuals have an ● Bilingual individuals exhibit more

advantage in novel word learning
control with processes like
● Bilingual individuals exhibit more memory
linguistic control
● When someone has aphasia, they
tend to exhibit similar deficits in
language and other categories
Cognitive Control and Treatment
Linguistic Based Treatment
vs.
Cognitive Based Treatment

Cross Language Generalization

(Kohnert, 2004)
Questions for Future Research

Can we use cognates to maximize treatment effects?

Which language maximizes treatment benefits?

Ethically, how many languages should we be treating?

Do the patterns of recovery have neural correlates?

How do differences between languages manifest in multilingual aphasia?

References
Abutalebi, J., Della Rosa, P. A., Tettamanti, M., Green, D. W., & Cappa, S. F. (2009). Bilingual
aphasia and language control: A follow-up fMRI and intrinsic connectivity study. Brain and Language, 109(2-3), 141-156.

Ansaldo, A. I., Marcotte K., Schererc L., Raboteau G. (2008) Language therapy and bilingual aphasia: Clinical implications of psycholinguistic and neuroimaging
research. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 24(6), 539-557.

Grosjean, F. The extent of bilingualism. In Grosjean, F. (2010). Bilingual: Life and Reality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Ijalba, E., Olber, K., Chengappa, S. (2006). Bilingual Aphasia. In T. Bhatia & W. Ritchie (Eds.),
The Handbook of Bilingualism. 71-86. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing

Kohnert, K. (2004). Cognitive and cognate-based treatments for bilingual aphasia: A case
study. Brain and Language, 91(3), 294-302.

Marrero, M. Z., Golden, C. J., & Espe-Pfeifer, P. (2002). Bilingualism, brain injury, and
recovery: Implications for understanding the bilingual and for therapy. Clinical Psychology Review, 22(3), 463-478.

Obler, L. K., & Albert, M. L. (1977). Influence of aging on recovery from aphasia in polyglots. Brain and language, 4(3), 460-463.

Pitres, A. (1895). Aphasia in polyglots. In M. Paradis (Trans.) Readings on aphasia in bilinguals and polyglots, 26-49.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2015). Detailed Languages Spoken at Home and Ability to Speak English for the Population 5 Years and Over: 2009-2013. Retrieved from
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2013/demo/2009-2013-lang-tables.html