Towards a Rich Linguistic Profiling of Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA)

This study addresses the utility of a fine-grained, morpho-syntactic linguistic profiling of PPAs. The aim is to overcome the limitations of the traditional three-way approach to classification—logopenic (lPPA), semantic (sPPA), and agrammatic/non-fluent (aPPA), (Gorno-Tempini et al., 2011) and provide a better support for speech therapists both during the linguistic competence assessment and training/support planning. This study better qualifies the morphosyntactic features utility that can be retrieved in various speech samples by extending the widely accepted perspective, which primarily considers controlled connected speech and focuses also on semantic and pragmatic aspects (Boschi et al., 2017). To achieve this, various speech samples from diagnosed Italian patients have been transcribed/annotated and morphosyntactic and fluency critical profiles extracted (Fig. 1). The current research focuses on the relevance of pauses positioning, structural complexity and richness measures.