Evidence map›Paper›PMID 39543926›Full record

ArticleJournal of neuropsychology2025

Resolving the problem of surface dyslexia in Italian through inflection of irregular verbs.

Daniele Licciardo, Valeria Isella, Elisa Canu, Marta Forestiero, Veronica Castelnovo, Stefania Valsecchi, Federica Agosta, Massimo Filippi, Ildebrando Appollonio, Peter J Nestor

Abstract read
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Article in Journal of neuropsychology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

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2citing papers in PubMed
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1 · What the graph read from it

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2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

10 authors.

Daniele LicciardoSchool of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano-Bicocca, Monza, Italy.ORCID 0000-0003-2353-2694
Valeria IsellaSchool of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano-Bicocca, Monza, Italy.ORCID 0000-0003-1850-1236
Elisa CanuNeuroimaging Research Unit, Division of Neuroscience, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
Marta ForestieroNeurology Department, Fondazione IRCCS San Gerardo Dei Tintori, Monza, Italy.
Veronica CastelnovoNeuroimaging Research Unit, Division of Neuroscience, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
Stefania ValsecchiNeurology Department, Fondazione IRCCS San Gerardo Dei Tintori, Monza, Italy.
Federica AgostaNeuroimaging Research Unit, Division of Neuroscience, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
Massimo FilippiNeuroimaging Research Unit, Division of Neuroscience, IRCCS San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy.
Ildebrando AppollonioSchool of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano-Bicocca, Monza, Italy.
Peter J NestorQueensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.ORCID 0000-0002-5860-5921

Funding

European Research Council (StG-2016_714388_NeuroTRACK)
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Surface dyslexia and dysgraphia are considered diagnostic features of semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA) and are useful signs in English, a language whose attributes afford numerous opportunities to observe these phenomena. This, however, is not the case in many languages, including Italian, that have high transparency between orthography and phonology, making surface reading and spelling errors scarce. This creates a problem in applying the diagnostic recommendations for svPPA in such languages. Surface dyslexia and dysgraphia are examples of 'regularization' errors in which semantic knowledge loss leads to a failure to recognize exceptions that do not follow standard rules of pronunciation. Another form of regularization involves the incorrect inflection of irregular verbs using the rules that govern regular verbs. Unlike irregularly pronounced words, Italian, as with many languages, has numerous irregular verbs. The Italian Verb Inflection Test (IVIT) was developed to test the hypothesis that svPPA would regularize irregular verbs when inflecting them into two Italian past tenses. Results confirmed that people with svPPA made a significantly greater proportion of regularization errors compared to people with typical Alzheimer's disease or logopenic variant PPA. Without recourse to the other diagnostic features of PPA subgroups, the IVIT on its own could separate svPPA from these other two groups with 70% sensitivity and ~ 80% specificity. Regularization of irregular verb inflection offers a solution to the problem of applying the surface dyslexia/dysgraphia criterion for svPPA diagnosis in Italian.

Indexed as

AgraphiaAphasia, Primary ProgressiveDyslexiaLanguageSemanticsAgedAged, 80 and overAlzheimer DiseaseFemaleHumansItalyLanguage TestsMaleMiddle AgedNeuropsychological TestsReadinglanguageprogressive aphasiaregularizationsemantic dementiasemanticssurface dyslexiaverb inflection

Identifiers

PMID39543926
PMCPMC12166653

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LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.