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OverviewThe Lehman Neurolinguistics Lab is housed at Lehman College, City University of New York. The lab is led by Dr. Mira Goral.
Our work focuses on language processing in bilingual and multilingual healthy adults and in individuals with aphasia. Our lab has received funding from external (NIH/NIDCD, NIH/NIA) and internal (PSC-CUNY, Shuster Fellowship) funding sources. |
The lab at a glance!
Featured Project: Changes Over Time in the Spoken Narrative Abilities of a Spanish- English Bilingual Person with Primary Progressive Aphasia
Monica Bonilla Alban, Rosamarlyn Cavallo, Sharon Penaherrera, Silvia De Marchi, Mira Goral
We analyzed data from a 55-year-old Spanish-English bilingual man with PPA over a 29-month period using a semi-spontaneous narrative elicitation task. Data were collected at six time points throughout the study.
Our findings reveal a progressive decline in spoken narrative skills, with a more pronounced deterioration during the final treatment phase (T5-T6), approximately five years post-diagnosis. Notably, during treatment periods—particularly an intensive one-month intervention—the patient exhibited either stabilization or improvement in narrative abilities.
These results inform clinicians, PPA patients, and their caregivers of the trajectory of narrative skill decline in PPA and underscore the benefits of speech and language therapy.
Our findings reveal a progressive decline in spoken narrative skills, with a more pronounced deterioration during the final treatment phase (T5-T6), approximately five years post-diagnosis. Notably, during treatment periods—particularly an intensive one-month intervention—the patient exhibited either stabilization or improvement in narrative abilities.
These results inform clinicians, PPA patients, and their caregivers of the trajectory of narrative skill decline in PPA and underscore the benefits of speech and language therapy.
Multilingual Assessment in Primary Progressive Aphasia
Asmaa El Hansali, Imalay Rodriguez, Sharon Peñaherrera, & Mira Goral
This research study is part of a larger study that focuses on reducing bias and misconception associated with assessment practices of acquired language impairments (aphasia) among people who are multilingual and multicultural. This study aims to examine the bilingual patient's language profile (e.g., languages spoken, language proficiency) and language choice (single language vs. multilingual assessment sessions) and how they affect his/her performance. A novel language assessment is explored, in which multilingual people are not restricted to respond in one of their languages, rather, they are encouraged to use whichever language they wish. The project seeks to improve the quality of healthcare practices in the context of human mobility and multiculturalism in the U.S. and globally.
Featured Project: Exploring Verb Production Difficulties in Bilingual People with Post-Stroke Aphasia
Silvia D. Hargrove, Mira Goral
In this project we investigated the verb production difficulties in 8 bilingual Spanish-English participants with mild-to-moderate chronic non-fluent aphasia. Participants were tested on three different tasks: an action naming task, a verb inflection task, and a semi-spontaneous narrative production task. We found that participants demonstrated a greater dissociation between retrieval and conjugation in Spanish than in English. In addition, we did not find that retrieval and conjugation together (in the semi-spontaneous narratives) is harder than retrieval (action naming) or conjugation (verb inflection task).
Contact us
If you are interested in participating in our studies or want to learn more about our work, please send us an email. We are also looking for student volunteers and volunteer clinicians to join our team.
