Aphasia research

My research papers

I have published some of my work in peer reviewed journal articles. I have provided a short summary of each article below.

Pilkington, E., Sage, K., Saddy, D., & Robson, H. (2019). When does lexical activation support phonology? Evidence from Jargon reading and repetition. Journal of Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 1-20.

• In this research study I looked at whether Jargon speech is worse for words that are harder to find (because they are not commonly used and more difficult to picture in your mind) than easier words (which are more frequently used and easier to picture). I wanted to explore this because speech and language therapy treatments select words for therapy based on these features because we know that, generally, people with aphasia find it easier to produce highly frequent words. This study showed that people with Jargon speech also found it easier to produce the highly frequent and picturable words; however, they still produced a large portion of Jargon speech errors. This suggests that speech and language therapy can help reduce jargon speech by working with certain types of words, but that this approach will not always help the person with jargon speech to say sounds more accurately.

Pilkington, E., Sage, K., Saddy, D., & Robson, H. (2019). What can repetition, reading and naming tell us about Jargon aphasia? Journal of Neurolinguistics. 49, 45-56.

• This study looked at whether Jargon speech was more or less severe in different speech and language therapy tasks (seeing a picture and naming it aloud, hearing a word and repeating it, seeing a written word and speaking it aloud). The results showed that people produced less jargon speech when they are naming pictures, in comparison to when they saw a written word or heard a word to repeat. Usually in aphasia we see that people find it easier to say words correctly when they see the written letters or hear the sounds, but this does not seem to be the case for people with jargon speech. This suggests that people with Jargon speech find it more difficult to say words correctly when we give more sound information to process.

Pilkington, E., Keidel, J., Kendrick, L.T., Saddy, J.D., Sage, K. & Robson, H. (2017). Sources of Phoneme Errors in Repetition: Perseverative, Neologistic and Lesion Patterns in Jargon Aphasia. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 11(225) 1662-5161, 10.3389/fnhum.2017.00225.

• The study asked which parts of the brain are affected by stroke when someone produces Jargon speech. This is important because we know that certain parts of the brain have specific jobs to do and, by looking at the brains of people with Jargon speech, we can understand more about why Jargon speech happens. In this study I looked at the brain scans of 25 people who produced Jargon speech and 13 people who had had a stroke but did not make Jargon speech errors. By comparing across the brain scans I could identify that people with Jargon speech had damage to the parts of their brains which are important for listening to and selecting speech sounds in words. This suggests that one of the causes of jargon speech may be because people have difficulties listening and monitoring their own speech. More research is needed for us to understand this relationship and how we might be able to help people with Jargon speech.

Research I have collaborated on

Robson, H., Pilkington, E., Evans, L., DeLuca, V. & Keidel, J. (2017). Phonological and semantic processing during comprehension in Wernicke’s aphasia: an N400 and Phonological Mapping Negativity study. Neuropsychologia, 100, 144-154

My conference activities

I have presented posters and talks about my research work at international and national conferences. My conference presentations are based on my research work outlined above. Please see my Conference news section for the latest updates.

Pilkington, E., Sage, K., Saddy, J. D., & Robson, H. (2019). Modifying the severity of Jargon aphasia using inter-stimulus manipulations. Academy of Aphasia, October, Macau. [Poster presentation].

Pilkington, E., Sage, K., Saddy, J. D., & Robson, H. (2018). Do lexical processing demands impact Jargon perseveration? A case-series analysis of phonological accuracy and perseveration. UK Stroke Forum, December, Telford. [Poster presentation]

Pilkington, E., Sage, K., Saddy, J. D., & Robson, H. (2018). Do lexical processing demands impact Jargon perseveration? Science of Aphasia, September, Venice [Oral presentation]

Pilkington, E., Sage, K., Saddy, J. D., & Robson, H. (2017). Lexical activation in Jargon reading and repetition. 55th Annual Academy of Aphasia, October, Baltimore. [Platform presentation]

Pilkington, E., Sage, K., Saddy, J. D., & Robson, H. (2017). Lexical Activation in Jargon Reading and Repetition. 18^th International Science of Aphasia, September, Geneva. [Poster presentation]

Pilkington, E., Sage, K., Saddy, J. D. & Robson, H. (2016). The Nature of Jargon: An analysis of phonemic content and target relatedness of nonwords. 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia, October, Llandudno. [Platform presentation]

Pilkington, E., Sage, K., Saddy, J. D., and Robson, H. (2016). The nature of Jargon: An analysis of phonemic content and target relatedness of Nonwords. UK Stroke Forum, December, Liverpool. [Poster presentation]