BEATING VICTIM MOUTHS WORDS, LAUGHS.

Byline: Associated Press

The piano teacher who was beaten into a coma in Central Park mouthed her name, laughed at a nurse's joke and followed movement with her eyes, her doctor said Friday.

Her state of awareness, however, is patchy.

``She responds one out of 10 times,'' her neurosurgeon, Dr. Jamshid Ghajar, said at a news conference at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.

The extent of the physical and cognitive damage she suffered will not be known for about two months, he said.

``People don't recover from a coma and become normal all of a sudden,'' Ghajar warned. ``As they recover, it is a very slow process.''

Among her family and the nurses who have been attending her around the clock, emotions were running high after the 32-year-old woman regained consciousness on Wednesday.

Her sister was in her room Friday when Ghajar said, ```Who is this? Can you name this person?' She named her sister.''

She has also mouthed her father's name and her own name, which has been withheld because she was sexually assaulted during the June 4 attack in Manhattan. She is unable to vocalize because she has had a tracheotomy and is breathing through her windpipe.

Doctors will try to adjust the tracheotomy so she can talk in the next week, Ghajar said.

The young woman has been sitting in a special chair designed for patients after they wake up from comas. She has been tracking people and movement with her eyes, Ghajar said.