For readers looking to understand lexical access and word-finding difficulty (WFD), Semantic Processing and Word Finding Difficulty Across the Lifespan: A Practical Guide for Speech-Language Pathologists provides a comprehensive review of current research and clinical approaches to establish a holistic, interdisciplinary understanding of lexical access and retrieval difficulty across different communication disorders. By including practical guidelines and protocols, this professional text can help speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and other related professionals bridge the gap between research and clinical practice. This text covers a wide range of communication disorders, including developmental language disorder, autism spectrum disorder, aphasia, normal aging, and dementia. It illustrates the connections between the research evidence and clinical practice and addresses lexical learning and retrieval difficulty through a holistic lens and cognitive-linguistic frameworks. This text integrates research evidence from a variety of disciplines, including speech-language pathology, linguistics, neuroscience, and psychology. The authors take readers for a deep dive into different underlying problems that lead to lexical access and retrieval difficulty and strategies to remediate them effectively. By addressing lexical issues from a broader view, this unique resource helps readers see the connections from different perspectives to further understand the complex issues involved in lexical learning and retrieval. Key Features A discussion of lexical learning and expansion from birth to school-age by incorporating metalinguistic skills and considering the relationships between language domains. An exploration of contributing factors to lexical learning and word retrieval. A holistic review of standardized and nonstandard measures for the breadth and depth of lexical access and retrieval across the lifespan and for people with diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. A comprehensive review of current available evidence-based and semantic-focused interventions for both developmental and neurogenic communication disorders. Chapter summaries and discussion questions close each chapter. Clinical implication sections help connect research to clinical practice. Therapy plan examples for commonly implemented lexical intervention approaches. A PluralPlus companion website with printable versions of the forms in the book

Table of Contents:
Preface Contributors Reviewers Chapter 1. Introduction to Lexicon Lei Sun Chapter 2. Introduction to Lexical Production Models and Related Neural Network Pei-Fang Hung Chapter 3. Early Lexical Development: From Prelinguistic Stage to Toddler Lei Sun Chapter 4. Vocabulary Expansion from Preschool and Beyond Lei Sun Chapter 5. Variables that Affect Word Retrieval in Adults with Acquired Language Disorders Kris Brock Chapter 6. Word Access and Retrieval Difficulty in Different Populations Lei Sun and Pei-Fang Hung Chapter 7. Assessment of Lexical Knowledge and Word Production Lei Sun and Pei-Fang Hung Chapter 8. Approaches to Facilitate Vocabulary Learning and Word Retrieval in Children Lei Sun Chapter 9. Treatment for Lexical Retrieval in Neurogenic Language Disorders Pei-Fang Hung Chapter 10. Semantic Processing Bilinguals Belinda Daughrity Index