Department of Linguistics

Rhonda Friedman

Cognitive Neuropsychology Lab

Our lab is devoted to the study of how language is processed in the normal brain; how language breaks down in patients with stroke, head injury and dementia; and how the brain recovers language functions -- with or without therapy -- in the months following a stroke or head injury. Our research program may be divided into five related areas of interest (that draw upon linguistic issues ranging from semantics to phonology).

1. Understanding acquired disorders of language (aphasia) and reading (alexia) subsequent to stroke and head injury.

2. Rehabilitation of reading following stroke or head injury.

3. The neural basis of reading in healthy readers and alexic patients,

4. Rehabilitation of anomia following stroke or head injury. .

5. Semantic memory deficits in dementia.