TY - JOUR
T1 - Language processing and executive functions in early treated adults with phenylketonuria (PKU)
AU - De Felice, Sara
AU - Romani, Cristina
AU - Geberhiwot, Tarekegn
AU - Macdonald, Anita
AU - Palermo, Liana
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Cognitive Neuropsychology on 28 Feb 2018, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/02643294.2017.1422709
PY - 2018/5/19
Y1 - 2018/5/19
N2 - We provide an in-depth analysis of language functions in early-treated adults with phenylketonuria (AwPKUs, N = 15–33), as compared to age- and education-matched controls (N = 24–32; N varying across tasks), through: a. narrative production (the Cinderella story), b. language pragmatics comprehension (humour, metaphors, inferred meaning), c. prosody discrimination d. lexical inhibitory control and planning (Blocked Cyclic Naming; Hayling Sentence Completion Test, Burgess & Shallice, 1997). AwPKUs exhibited intact basic language processing (lexical retrieval, phonology/articulation, sentence construction). Instead, deficits emerged in planning and reasoning abilities. Compared to controls, AwPKUs were: less informative in narrative production (lower rate of Correct Information Units); slower in metaphorical understanding and inferred meaning; less accurate in focused lexical-search (Hayling test). These results suggest that i) executive deficits in PKU cannot be explained by an accumulation of lower-order deficits and/or general speed impairments, ii) executive functions engage dedicated neurophysiological resources, rather than simply being an emergent property of lower-level systems.
AB - We provide an in-depth analysis of language functions in early-treated adults with phenylketonuria (AwPKUs, N = 15–33), as compared to age- and education-matched controls (N = 24–32; N varying across tasks), through: a. narrative production (the Cinderella story), b. language pragmatics comprehension (humour, metaphors, inferred meaning), c. prosody discrimination d. lexical inhibitory control and planning (Blocked Cyclic Naming; Hayling Sentence Completion Test, Burgess & Shallice, 1997). AwPKUs exhibited intact basic language processing (lexical retrieval, phonology/articulation, sentence construction). Instead, deficits emerged in planning and reasoning abilities. Compared to controls, AwPKUs were: less informative in narrative production (lower rate of Correct Information Units); slower in metaphorical understanding and inferred meaning; less accurate in focused lexical-search (Hayling test). These results suggest that i) executive deficits in PKU cannot be explained by an accumulation of lower-order deficits and/or general speed impairments, ii) executive functions engage dedicated neurophysiological resources, rather than simply being an emergent property of lower-level systems.
UR - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02643294.2017.1422709
U2 - 10.1080/02643294.2017.1422709
DO - 10.1080/02643294.2017.1422709
M3 - Article
SN - 0264-3294
VL - 34
SP - 148
EP - 170
JO - Cognitive Neuropsychology
JF - Cognitive Neuropsychology
IS - 3-4
ER -