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.