Cynthia K. Thompson

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders

Cynthia K. Thompson’s research focuses on normal and disordered language and how language recovers in persons with brain damage. This work makes use of mutually supportive language representation (linguistic) and processing accounts of normal language to predict breakdown and recovery patterns. These patterns provide blueprints for clinical protocols and, in turn, address the utility of this translational approach for studying language disorders. The processing mechanisms that support recovery also are studied by tracking eye movements in sentence processing and production, and the neural correlates of recovery are examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Affiliations

Aphasia and Neurolinguistics Research Laboratory

Department of Linguistics

Department of Neurology

Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center

NU Cognitive Neuroscience

Northwestern University Institute for Neuroscience (NUIN)

Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO)

Education

PhD	Speech and Language Pathology/Linguistics, University of Kansas
MS	Psychology, University of Oregon
MS	Speech and Language Pathology, University of Oregon
BS	Psychology, University of Oregon (honors)

Recent Publications

Thompson, C. K., & Choy, J. (in press). Pronominal resolution and gap filling in agrammatic aphasia: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research.

Choy, J., & Thompson, C. K. (in press). Binding in agrammatic aphasia: Processing to comprehension. Aphasiology.

Thompson C. K., Bonakdarpour, B., Fix, S. C. (in press). Neural mechanisms of argument structure processing in agrammatic aphasia and healthy age-matched listeners. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Thompson C. K., & Den Ouden, D. B. (2008). Neuroimaging and Recovery of Language in Aphasia. Current Reports in Neurology and Neuroscience, 8:475-483.

Den Ouden, D. B., Fix, S. C., Parrish, T., & Thompson, C.K. (2008). Argument Structure effects in action verb naming in static and dynamic conditions. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 1-20.

Lee, J., Milman, L.H., & Thompson, C. K. (2008).  Functional category production in English agrammatism.  Aphasiology, 22, 893-905.

Milman, L.H., Dickey, M.W., & Thompson, C.K. (2008). A psychometric analysis of functional category production in English agrammatic narratives. Brain and Language, 105, 18-31.

Dickey, M.W., Milman, L.H., & Thompson, C.K. (2008). Judgment of functional morphology in agrammatic aphasia. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 21, 35-65.

Thompson, C. K., Bonakdarpour, B., Fix, S. C., Blumenfeld, H. D., Parrish, T. B., Gitelman, D. R., & Mesulam, M. -M. (2007). Neural correlates of verb argument structure processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19, 1753-1767.

Bonakdarpour, B., Parrish, T., & Thompson, C.K. (2007). Hemodynamic response changes in patients with stroke-induced aphasia: Implications for fMRI data analysis. NeuroImage, 36, 322-331.

Dickey, M.W., Choy, J., & Thompson, C. K. (2007). Real-time comprehension of wh-movement in aphasia: Evidence from eyetracking while listening. Brain and Language: 100,1-22.

Thompson, C. K. (2007). Complexity in language learning. American Journal of Speech and Language Pathology, 16, 3-5.

Thompson, C. K., & Shapiro, L. P. (2007). Complexity in treatment of syntactic deficits. American Journal of Speech and Language Pathology, 16, 30-42.

Thompson, C.K. (2006). Single subject controlled experiments in aphasia: The science and the state of the science. Journal of Communication Disorders, 39, 266-291.

Awards and Honors

2008	Editor’s award, American Journal of Speech and Language Pathology, American Speech Language-Hearing Association
2007	Martin E. and Gertrude G. Walder Award for Research Excellence, Northwestern University
2001	Fellow, Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center, Northwestern University
1999	Fellow, American Speech Language and Hearing Association

Active Grants and Funding

2008-2013	Neurolinguistic Investigations of Aphasia and Aphasia Recovery (continuation). The National Institutes of Health (NIHCD) RO1 DC01948-15-19. $2,521,837.00.
2007-2012	Language in Primary Progressive Aphasia. (The National Institutes of Health (NIHCD) RO1 DC008899. $2,156,486.
2005-2010	Neural Correlates of Aphasia Treatment and Recovery: fMRI Investigations. National Institutes of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIHCD) RO1 DC007213-01-05. $2,837,534.30

Courses

CSD 495-1	Aphasia I: Normal and Disordered Language Representation and Processing
CSD 545	Seminar in Communication Sciences and Disorders
CSD 507	Neural Mechanisms of Language Processing
CSD 314	Topics in Cognitive Neuroscience
CSD 550-1	Research Methods-1
CSD 550-2	Research Methods-2

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