Anomia Treatment Platform as Behavioral Engine for Use in Research on Physiological Adjuvants to Neurorehabilitation

The purpose of this study was to create a behavioral treatment engine for future use in research on physiological adjuvants in aphasia rehabilitation. We chose the behavioral target anomia, which is a feature displayed by many persons who have aphasia. Further, we wished to saturate the treatment approach with many strategies and cues that have been empirically reported to have a positive influence on aphasia outcome, with the goal being to optimize the potential for positive response in most participants. A single-subject multiple baseline design with replication across eight participants was employed. Four men and four women, with an average age of 62 yr and an average of 63.13 mo poststroke onset, served as participants. Word-retrieval treatment was administered 3 d/wk, 1 h/d for a total of 20 treatment hours (6-7 wk). Positive acquisition effects were evident in all eight participants (d effect size [ES] = 5.40). Treatment effects were maintained 3 mo after treatment termination for five participants (d ES = 2.94). Within and across semantic category, generalization was minimal (d ES = 0.43 within and 1.09 across). This study demonstrates that this behavioral treatment engine provides a solid platform on which to base future studies whereby various treatment conditions are manipulated and pharmacologic support is added

Apraxia of Speech: Change in Error Consistency Following a Multimodal intensive Treatment (MMiT)

Historically, error inconsistency has been considered a defining feature of AOS. While recent studies have demonstrated consistency of certain errors over time, changes following intervention have not been reported. Therefore, we examined error consistency across successive repetitions of the same utterance following 120 hours of Multimodal intensive Treatment (MMiT). Three males with AOS and aphasia produced three repetitions of 10 target words before and after treatment. SLP evaluations of transcribed responses revealed increased consistency of error location across all participants and increased consistency in error number across successive responses. Further investigation of MMiT in relation to these findings is warranted

Anomia treatment platform as behavioral engine for use in research on physiological adjuvants to neurorehabilitation

The purpose of this study was to create a “behavioral treatment engine” for future use in research on physiological adjuvants in aphasia rehabilitation. We chose the behavioral target anomia, which is a feature displayed by many persons who have aphasia. Further, we wished to saturate the treatment approach with many strategies and cues that have been empirically reported to have a positive influence on aphasia outcome, with the goal being to optimize the potential for positive response in most participants. A single-subject multiple baseline design with replication across eight participants was employed. Four men and four women, with an average age of 62 yr and an average of 63.13 mo poststroke onset, served as participants. Word-retrieval treatment was administered 3 d/wk, 1 h/d for a total of 20 treatment hours (6–7 wk). Positive acquisition effects were evident in all eight participants d effect size [ES] = 5.40). Treatment effects were maintained 3 mo after treatment termination for five participants (d ES = 2.94). Within and across semantic category, generalization was minimal (d ES = 0.43 within and 1.09 across). This study demonstrates that this behavioral treatment engine provides a solid platform on which to base future studies whereby various treatment conditions are manipulated and pharmacologic support is added