During my M.Sc. program at the Moscow State University, Faculty of Clinical Psychology, I researched the effects of verbal and nonverbal memory deficits on language comprehension in fluent and nonfluent aphasia assessing patients at the Center for Speech Pathology and Neurorehabilitation in Moscow. In 2012, I started my Ph.D. at the University of Hong Kong’s Devision of Speech and Hearing Sciences.
My dissertation was about cognitive deficits and their role in language impairments in aphasia. To address this issue, firstly, a cognitive screening battery tailored to the particular needs of Russian-speaking persons with post-stroke aphasia was adapted and validated. Secondly, cognitive deficits revealed with this screening tool and their role in impaired language comprehension in the two major aphasia syndromes were investigated. Thirdly, the focus was narrowed to cognitive control deficits and their role in language comprehension and picture naming in aphasia. During the last year of my Ph.D., I was working at a Hong Kong-based digital startup developing cognitive and emotional screening tools for teens.
In March 2017, I joined MultiLing’s project “Studies of Multilingual Aphasia”. Our key objective is to provide for a better understanding of the nature of language impairment and recovery in multilingual aphasia. Most often, impairments are relatively equal in all one’s languages. However, cases where the individual languages were differently disturbed have also been reported regularly. To explain this variety of language impairment patterns and to decide what language to choose for effective assessment and therapy, one should discover how interplaying variables, such as age and context of language acquisition, frequency of language use, personal attitudes towards one’s languages, etc., influence language processing in a multilingual brain.
Moreover, cognitive factors, such as attention, play a role as well. For example, researchers have suggested that when multilinguals speak, representations of all their languages are active and, consequently, those languages that are not currently in use should be inhibited. Based on this, one may assume that people with weak selective attention would be particularly challenged when they need to switch between languages or speak in their less dominant language. Thus, cognitive profiles of people with multilingual aphasia are of great importance. In our project, we embrace questions about assessment tools and therapy strategies tailored specifically for people with multilingual aphasia.
On weekends and holidays, I enjoy exploring the city, going hiking with my friends and traveling with my boyfriend. In the evenings, I educate myself in computational modeling and coding to keep up with new research methods. In April, I will start attending Norwegian courses at the UiO.