Date of Completion

5-29-2019

Embargo Period

5-29-2019

Keywords

Traumatic Brain Injury, speech-language pathology, elaborative encoding

Major Advisor

Carl Coelho

Associate Advisor

Eiling Yee

Associate Advisor

Tammie Spaulding

Associate Advisor

Nicole Landi

Field of Study

Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Open Access

Campus Access

Abstract

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are heterogeneous in nature and commonly result in deficits to multiple areas of cognition including memory, linguistic processing, and executive functioning. For individuals with TBI, returning to everyday activities can be a challenge with their quality of life reduced by a variety of impairments including hindered lexical retrieval, deficient prospective memory, and slowed information processing. Semantic elaboration is a procedure in which targeted content is analyzed in relation to content associated in meaning. The present studies investigated the use of semantic elaborative cues to aid lexical retrieval, retention, and prospective memory performance. Results revealed that providing semantic elaborative content was effective in both aiding lexical retrieval and in supporting enhanced retention in neurotypical individuals and persons with a history of TBI. Semantic elaborative cues produced minimal benefit with regard to aiding prospective memory performance. Nonetheless, the results of the present body of work support the use of semantic elaboration as a tool to aid individuals who present with cognitive and linguistic deficits.

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