#80 – The Future is Research, Accessibility, and Design.

Happy Children’s Day!

Today, I wrote my final examination. It was great. My classmates and I took pictures. I made some moves that have no legal right to be called dance steps. Everyone was happy.

I then went home almost three hours after my paper; remember the pictures and so-called “dance”. Anyway, I posted the news of my exam completion on my WhatsApp status, got some congratulatory messages, and so on and so forth.

NOOOOOWWW, I feel excited to tell you that I can direct full focus on my research. It’s what I have been most excited about. Also, my articles on accessibility and equality will begin in full force. I’ll also be doing open source contributions and web3 designs.

My current research is on the patterns of language impairment in dementia. Language issues in dementia in Africa are pretty much uninvestigated. In fact, there is very little research on dementia in Africa. As a result, many people are still left uneducated about what dementia is, why it happens, and the effect it has on people. In my Nigerian experience, dementia is seen as a “mental problem” or the manifestation of a curse. This is because people with dementia have certain traits that are not “normal”. They could be violent, irrational, forgetful, or make inappropriate or spontaneous comments. Some people also lose the ability to groom themselves, making them look unkempt if not taken care of by family or caregivers. In short, many people with dementia need to have someone to see to their daily needs.

Unfortunately, many Nigerians do not understand this. My country even has a culture of abandoning mentally unstable people to their fate. This is why we see many of such people who we call “mad” living on the street, being jeered at, and generally avoided. Those “mad” people who are fortunate to have family members that take care of them still receive jeers and the quite irrational and funny (said lightly) fear from people. This is the way a lot of people in Nigeria, and I suspect many parts of Africa, also see and treat people with dementia.

I actually heard a story from someone quite recently about how a woman with dementia (assumed because of her symptoms) used to be stoned by children. The community branded her a witch. This happened some 20 to 30 years ago. For the children to believe that she was a witch, the idea had to have come from their parents. Imagine what happened long before that time. Worse still is the ideology those children, now adults, have and are passing on to the younger generation.

This poses a critical need for us (academics) to be hands-on in educating Africa, starting from our small communities, about the true nature, reason, symptoms, lifestyle adjustment needs, and caregiving strategies, to name a few of dementia. You agree, don’t you?

To be honest, sometimes I wish I could do it all, but I am particularly drawn to language because it is one of the first things people notice. People instantly know when what you are saying does not sound exactly right. They think, “why is s/he saying rubbish?”. The more “rubbish” or “gibberish” they hear, the more they suspect that something is not right. As this “gibberish talk” is one way we – Nigerians – classify “mad” people, they come to that logical conclusion.

However, this is neither my only nor top reason for wanting to focus on identifying the language needs of people with dementia in Nigeria. Language difficulties in dementia need to be profiled for three important reasons; diagnosis, care interventions, and communication prospects.

First, studies show that types of dementia have different language symptoms compared to other kinds. As such, knowing this would aid more precise diagnosis. It is known that different dementias have somewhat overlapping symptoms. The differences in linguistic impairment would be helpful to further distinguish them.

In addition, knowing how language has been particularly impaired would aid treatment. For example, if a person has more word retrieval impairment, it is logical that their interventions should match that. Person-centred interventions can help address individual needs.

Lastly, as more people know how exactly language is impaired in dementia, they know what to expect. Effectively, they can learn how to bypass the communication difficulties posed. Some language impairments in dementia include impaired word fluency, reduced comprehension, paraphasia, ‘irrelevant talk’, wordy naming, simplified syntax, naming difficulty (both of objects – nouns, and of actions – verbs), pragmatic impairments, and so on.

From the studies I have cited, you would notice that all of this has been done, so why Nigeria? Simple, Nigerian realities and patterns of language use are different from other parts of the world. I’m particularly referring to the use of English, which about 70% of Nigerians currently use. Let me show you a snippet of my research proposal:

Nigerian English is heterogenous because Nigeria is a multilingual society (Oyebola, Ho, & Li, 2019). It is influenced by the over 450-500indigenous languages that are spoken countrywide (Emeka-Nwobia, 2015). The consequence of this is that people who speak different native languages use English differently. Regardless, scholars have identified that there is a standard variety of Nigerian Englishthat collectively carries the colour of many cultures in Nigeria (Adeyanju, 2009; Alo and Igwebuike, 2012; Kaan, Amase, & Tsavmbu, 2013; Amadi, 2021; Galadima, 2021). This version of Nigerian English is used in literature (Romanu & Uduk, 2016), politics, new media (Oyebola & Gut, 2020), education (Edem, 2016), and so on. It carries the cultural baggage and ideologies of Nigerians. Expectedly, some indigenous influences are noted in the domains of phonology (Akinola & Oladipupo, 2021), morphology (Fakoya, 2006), syntax (Edem, 2016), lexis (Obasi, 2022), semantic(Adegbija & Bello, 2001; Kaan et al, 2013), as well as other language elements such as idioms and proverbs (Adeyanju, 2009; Umar et al, 2016; Umar, 2018). The peculiarities can also be found at the level of applied linguistics such as pragmatics (Unuabonah & Gut, 2018) and stylistics (Ibhawaegbele & Edokpayi, 2012), as well as through scientific inquiries such as discourse analysis (Atolagbe, 2012:163). This inevitably indicates that other scientific inquiries into the linguistic domains of Nigerian English – in this case, investigating language impairment in dementia– are likely to result in findings that are peculiar to the Nigerian society.

In addition, existing language tests, such as the Boston Naming Test (BNT), used to evaluate naming and word retrieval may not be suited for Nigeria because they do not reflect the Nigerian linguistic context. It contains pictures of items that research participants will be asked to name. Some of these items include pretzel, seahorse, volcano, wreath, beaver, rhinoceros, acorn, igloo, and cactus. These are not native to Nigeria, thus, may be hard for a person with dementia from, for instance, a small community in South-Western Nigeria, to identify them. The problem of contextual consideration has also been noted across studies on language impairment in dementia in other multilingual/non-English speaking communities (Baker, 1993; Pineda, Rosselli, Ardila, Mejia, Romero, & Perez, 1999; Radanovic, 2005). Accordingly, they have worked towards domesticating language impairment tests for their communities (Hanssen, 2016). As Nigerian English is a domesticated variety of English that is used to express the worldview of Nigerians, the same will need to be done for linguistically accurate study in Nigeria.

Furthermore, the analysis of data will require a context driven approach to cater for the linguistic peculiarities of Nigerian English. According to Kaan et al (2013:66), the “semantic components of Nigerian English consist of semantic extension, semantic narrowing, semantic shift, semantic reduplication […]”. In their case study of a woman with non-fluent aphasia, Tang-Wai & Graham (2008) noted that she occasionally showed signs of paraphasia (semantic substitution like saying mother instead of daughter). Within their linguistic context, this may be accurate. However, in a case where a Nigerian person refers to a motorcycle as machine, it would be linguistically incorrect to label this as an indication for paraphasia because machine has been semantically extended to mean motorcycle in NigE, even where options are given as seen in BNT. The same is the case for bike which also means motorcycle in NigE. Some other semantically customised words in Nigerian English include Kolanut (bribe) and globe (electric bulb).

There is so much to discuss that I’m struggling to fit in here while making the article non-technical. So, here’s a hint of what I will discuss (quite simplified) in the coming days. Of course, my discussion will not be limited to these:

  • What is dementia
  • Risk factors of dementia
  • Prevalence of dementia in Africa, particularly Nigeria
  • Types of dementia
  • Physiological representation of dementia
  • Language pattern of dementia across studies and eventually in mine
  • Caregiving strategies of dementia
  • Web accessibility for people with dementia
  • Caregiver’s care
  • etc.

These are 500 words (or more ?)! Talk to you tomorrow!

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