2024

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NIDCD R21 Awarded

A new NIDCD R21 grant, "NIH R21 DC 021239: Integrating response time and ancillary information into the assessment of anomia" has been presented to the Aphasia Lab. The specific aims of this award are to (i) quantify anomia severity and processing speed based on accuracy and collateral response times during Philadelphia Naming Test administration, (ii) infuse ancillary predictive information about items and people with aphasia into the model to both enhance its precision and create an explanatory framework for understanding relations among the various sources of information, and (iii) test a key distributional assumption of response times during confrontation naming as a first step towards developing a chronometric cognitive model of anomia. This grant is a collaboration between Gerasimos Fergadiotis, Maria Kapantzoglou, and Teresa Roberts from Portland State University.

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2023

Our team presented at the 2023 ASHA Convention in Boston, MA. Here we shared our research which suggests that an automated method for approximating picture naming response latencies from people with aphasia is a sufficient proxy for this diagnostically informative metric. 

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2022

12/15/22: Our team presented three exciting projects at the 2022 ASHA Convention! We showcased our novel computer-adaptive version of the Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT-CAT) and shared its strong psychometric properties. Now you can start using the FREE web-based PNT-CAT with your patients to assess anomia! Read the handout for a full summary and additional links.  

 

Another presentation reviewed the development of an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) for aphasic speech transcriptions and feature error rate analysis. The third was on the inter-rater reliability of paraphasia classification with responses and error coding from the PNT. 

 

11/2/22: An exciting new partnership with the PSU Counseling of Education Department now makes counseling services available to people with aphasia (PWA) and their caregivers/families for a very low fee ($15 per session with sliding scale upon request). To prepare their graduate counseling students, our team provided training presentations Fall 2022 introducing aphasia, other co-occurring acquired communication disorders, and how to use SCA-based communication strategies to effectively work with PWA! Contact their Community Counseling Clinic to request services and mention your aphasia-related needs to be matched with a trained provider. 

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7/15/22: We have started recruitment for our NIH-funded R01 grant to develop a computerized word-finding assessment! Over the next three years, we'll be inviting at least 100 people with aphasia living around the Portland Metro area and possibly beyond to participate. Please contact us here for more information or to provide referrals. Click here for the PDF flier to learn more.

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5/20/22: We collaborated with Stroke Onward to support their Portland May 18th event to raise awareness for aphasia and stroke survivors! The local stroke and aphasia community gathered to send their team off on Stroke Across America, a cross-country fundraising bike ride!

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Throughout 2022, our team's research was presented at the following conferences: (1) Implementation Science IS for All: A CSD Research-Practice Exchange "Measuring perceived barriers and facilitators of a novel anomia assessment tool", (2) Clinical Aphasiology Conference "Item response theory modeling of the verb naming test", (3) International Aphasia Rehabilitation Conference "The PNT-CAT: A computer adaptive test version of the Philadelphia Naming Test", (4) International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation "Optimizing automatic speech recognition for people with aphasia", and (5) ASHA Conference "Computer adaptive naming assessment for aphasia: A new tool for SLPs", "Recognition of aphasic speech: ASR development and analysis", and "Inter-rater reliability of paraphasia classification: Practical implications for clinicians and researchers".

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2021

The Aphasia Lab and collaborators from OHSU received a new, one-year award from NIH to fuel the development of an automatic speech recognition system for aphasic speech. This award supports the phonemic transcription and task packaging of AphasiaBank data so that computer scientists from around the world may compete to train and develop this system.

 

Congratulations to Dr. Gerasimos Fergadiotis, who was a Guest Editor of Seminars in Speech and Language: Psychometrics of Adult Neurogenic Assessment Measures, Issue 3, Volume 42, pages 177-274, published June 2021. He also co-authored one of the featured articles: Computer Adaptive Testing for the Assessment of Anomia Severity.

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Stacey Steel, MS, CCC-SLP is the Aphasia Lab's newest Research Associate. She will be coordinating efforts for the R01 grant "Assessment of Anomia: Improving Efficiency and Utility Using Item Response Theory" by engaging in community outreach and participant recruitment, collecting and analyzing data, and collaborating with an interdisciplinary team of researchers from across the country.

 

Collaboration

PSU's Aphasia Lab is pleased to announce a new collaboration with Dr. Yasmeen Faroqi Shah, Associate Professor at the University of Maryland . This effort will be funded by her newly-awarded NIDCD R21 Award titled "Diagnostic Markers of Language Impairment in bilingual adults."  

2020

NIDCD R01 Awarded

A new NIDCD R01 grant, "NIH R01 DC 018813: Assessment of anomia: Improving efficiency and utility using item response theory" has been presented to the Aphasia Lab. The specific aims of this award include (i) establish a universal metric of anomia severity, (ii) refine and test a cognitive psychometric model of the processes underlying anomia, and (iii) develop a computer adaptive confrontation naming test for action verbs. This grant is a collaboration between William Hula at the Pittsburgh VA Healthcare System, Gerasimos Fergadiotis and Daniel Taylor-Rodriguez, from Portland State University, Michael Dickey from the University of Pittsburgh, and Steve Bedrick from OHSU.

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Mikala Fleegle, MS, CCC-SLP has joined the Aphasia Lab as a Research Associate. She will be coordinating research on the R01 grant, “Algorithmic Classification of Paraphasias."​

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2019

Marianne Casilio, MS, CCC-SLP has joined the Aphasia Lab as its first Research Associate. She will be coordinating research on the R01 grant, “Algorithmic Classification of Paraphasias."

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2018

ANCDS

Gerasimos Fergadiotis was invited to serve on the board of the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences as an executive member. ANCDS' mission is to enhance the communicative lives of people affected by neurologic disorders and ensure that every person affected by neurologic communication disorders receives the highest quality clinical services.

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NIDCD R01 Awarded

PSU’s Aphasia Lab is pleased to announce a new NIDCD R01 grant, "Algorithmic Classification of Paraphasias." This project focuses on automated analysis of the language of people with aphasia following strokes, and is developing techniques to identify and characterize paraphasic speech errors. The long-term goal of this work is to develop tools to assist aphasiologists and speech-language pathologists in delivering and scoring assessments. This grant is a collaboration between Steven Bedrick, Ph.D., at OHSU and Gerasimos Fergadiotis, Ph.D., from Portland State University.

 

Clinical Aphasiology Conference 2018

Fergadiotis, G., Hula, D. W., & Silkes, J. P. (2018). A computer adaptive anomia test for repeated measurements. Poster presented at the Clinical Aphasiology Conference, Austin, TX​

 

Swiderski, A., Gravier, M., Dickey, M., Fergadiotis, G., & Hula, D. W. (2018). Predicting Confrontation Naming Performance Using Item Response Theory. Poster presented at the Clinical Aphasiology Conference, Austin, TX.​

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