Date of Award

12-2007

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Program

Psychology

Department

Psychology

Major Professor

Greve, Kevin

Second Advisor

LaHoste, Gerald J.

Third Advisor

Weems, Carl

Fourth Advisor

Williams-Brewer, Mary

Fifth Advisor

Bianchini, Kevin J.

Abstract

The present study included three traumatic brain injury (TBI) groups (good effort mild TBI, poor effort mild TBI, and good effort moderate/severe TBI) and two neurologic control groups (dementia and unilateral left hemisphere stroke). Language impairment was examined using the following measures: Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III Verbal Comprehension Index and the Vocabulary, Similarities, Information, and Comprehension subtests; the Boston Naming Test; the Phonemic and Semantic cue conditions of the Controlled Oral Word Association Test; the Auditory Comprehension subtest of the Cognistat; Wide Range Achievement Test-3 Reading subtest; and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. When effort was controlled, there was a significant effect of injury severity on language impairment. Poor effort and diagnosable malingering were responsible for most of the neuropsychological test evidence of language impairment in mild TBI.

Rights

The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.

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