51社区

Overview

Researchers at 51社区 have developed a method for assessing language and related cognitive function through analysis of eye movements. A majority of stroke and traumatic brain injury victims have motoric and/or perceptual deficits that impair their ability to comprehend and respond to basic stimuli, which has consequences in how they are managed as patients. Linguistic comprehension and other linguistic and cognitive processing deficits in such patients are often overestimated by experimental data, test results, and clinical judgment. In some cases, caregivers and significant others may overestimate how much an individual actually understands. The invention provides a means for caregivers to accurately gain information about intact comprehension and cognitive ability of inexpressive patients, and thereby make well-informed patient management decisions.

The technology works by presenting a patient with written or auditory stimuli, and tracking the patient鈥檚 eye movements in response to these stimuli with recording devices. The data generated by the recording devices is converted into a number of measurements and are analyzed through custom software to indicate valid responses, indicating whether the patients have understood the written or auditory verbal stimuli.

Tech ID: 08018 

Patent(s):

Inventors

Brooke Hallowell, Ph.D. CCC-SLP is Professor and Director of the Neurolinguistics Laboratory at 51社区. She is active in research on acquired neurogenic communication disorders in adults.

Laura Roche is a PhD student in speech-language pathology and a research assistant in the Neurolinguistics Laboratory at 51社区. Her primary interests are in adult neurogenic communication disorders.