title: Comparing the production of complex sentences in Persian patients with post-stroke aphasia and non-damaged people with normal speaking.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cerebrovascular disease leading to stroke is the most common cause of aphasia. Speakers with agrammatic non-fluent aphasia have difficulties in production of movement-derived sentences such as passive sentences, topicalized constituents, and Wh-questions. To assess the production of complex sentences, some passive, topicalized and focused sentences were designed for patients with non-fluent Persian aphasic. Afterwards, patients' performance in sentence production was tested and compared with healthy non-damaged subjects.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this cross sectional study, a task was designed to assess the different types of sentences (active, passive, topicalized and focused) adapted to Persian structures. Seven Persian patients with post-stroke non-fluent agrammatic aphasia (5 men and 2 women) and seven healthy non-damaged subjects participated in this study. The computed tomography (CT) scan or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed that all the patients had a single left hemisphere lesion involved middle cerebral artery (MCA), Broca`s area and in its white matter. In addition, based on Bedside version of Persian Western Aphasia Battery (P-WAB-1), all of them were diagnosed with moderate Broca aphasia. Then, the production task of Persian complex sentences was administered.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was a significant difference between four types of sentences in patients with aphasia [Degree of freedom (df) = 3, P < 0.001]. All the patients showed worse performance than the healthy participants in all the four types of sentence production (P < 0.050).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In general, it is concluded that topicalized and focused sentences as non-canonical complex sentences in Persian are very difficult to produce for patients with agrammatic non-fluent aphasia. It seems that sentences with A-movement are simpler for the patients than sentences involving A`-movement; since they include shorter movements in compare to topicalized and focused sentences.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech Therapy, School of Rehabilitation, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Azar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mehri
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Askar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ghorbani
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, School of Letters and Humanities, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Darzi
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiotherapy, School of Rehabilitation, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Shohreh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jalaie
authors.affiliation: Department of Rehabilitation, School of Rehabilitation, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: Hassan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ashayeri
keywords: Agrammatism; Nonfluent Aphasia; Production; Sentence; Stroke