Learning from Impairment: Leveraging Insights from Clinical Linguistics in Language Modelling Research

Dominique Brunato


Abstract
This position paper investigates the potential of integrating insights from language impairment research and its clinical treatment to develop human-inspired learning strategies and evaluation frameworks for language models (LMs). We inspect the theoretical underpinnings underlying some influential linguistically motivated training approaches derived from neurolinguistics and, particularly, aphasiology, aimed at enhancing the recovery and generalization of linguistic skills in aphasia treatment, with a primary focus on those targeting the syntactic domain. We highlight how these insights can inform the design of rigorous assessments for LMs, specifically in their handling of complex syntactic phenomena, as well as their implications for developing human-like learning strategies, aligning with efforts to create more sustainable and cognitively plausible natural language processing (NLP) models.
Anthology ID:
2025.coling-main.281
Volume:
Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Computational Linguistics
Month:
January
Year:
2025
Address:
Abu Dhabi, UAE
Editors:
Owen Rambow, Leo Wanner, Marianna Apidianaki, Hend Al-Khalifa, Barbara Di Eugenio, Steven Schockaert
Venue:
COLING
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
4167–4174
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2025.coling-main.281/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Dominique Brunato. 2025. Learning from Impairment: Leveraging Insights from Clinical Linguistics in Language Modelling Research. In Proceedings of the 31st International Conference on Computational Linguistics, pages 4167–4174, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
Learning from Impairment: Leveraging Insights from Clinical Linguistics in Language Modelling Research (Brunato, COLING 2025)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2025.coling-main.281.pdf