Phonological Neighborhood Density Effects on Treatment of Naming in Aphasia

Phonological treatments to improve naming ability in aphasia focus on re-strengthening connections within the phonological system.  In this study, a participant with a phonologically-based impairment demonstrated a greater improvement in naming ability on words trained from high density neighborhoods. Stimulus parameters, such as neighborhood density, may play a critical role in the effectiveness of treatment protocols

Pitch and Rhythm Processing in Aphasia

In individuals with aphasia, it has long been observed that though the ability to produce fluent strings of speech may be impaired, the ability to sing is sometimes preserved (Gerstman, 1964). In response to such observations, Albert, Sparks and Helm (1973) developed what is known as Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT) with the suggestion that right hemisphere mechanisms believed to be involved in music processing may be able to compensate for damage to the language zone in the left hemisphere. Because music and speech share similar compositions (e.g., rhythm, pitch, duration and often linguistic content) and are thought to reign dominant in opposite hemispheres, it is understandable that such claims be made. However, collective findings in the areas of melodic and prosodic processing and the neural substrates that are involved in these processes suggest that the basis for the effectiveness of MIT must be more complicated than originally described. Although MIT has been shown to be a successful remediation tool for the partial restoration of language function in some individuals with aphasia (Sparks, Helm & Albert, 1974; Goldfarb & Bader, 1979; Schlaug, Marchina, & Norton, 2008, 2009) little evidence has been gathered as to what exactly makes this therapy effective. Consequently, a lack of evidence has been provided as to how MIT can be individualized to maximize the efficiency and efficacy of the treatment it provides

Auditory-Motor Mapping Training as an Intervention to Facilitate Speech Output in Non-Verbal Children with Autism: A Proof of Concept Study

Although up to 25% of children with autism are non-verbal, there are very few interventions that can reliably produce significant improvements in speech output. Recently, a novel intervention called Auditory-Motor Mapping Training (AMMT) has been developed, which aims to promote speech production directly by training the association between sounds and articulatory actions using intonation and bimanual motor activities. AMMT capitalizes on the inherent musical strengths of children with autism, and offers activities that they intrinsically enjoy. It also engages and potentially stimulates a network of brain regions that may be dysfunctional in autism. Here, we report an initial efficacy study to provide ‘proof of concept’ for AMMT. Six non-verbal children with autism participated. Prior to treatment, the children had no intelligible words. They each received 40 individual sessions of AMMT 5 times per week, over an 8-week period. Probe assessments were conducted periodically during baseline, therapy, and follow-up sessions. After therapy, all children showed significant improvements in their ability to articulate words and phrases, with generalization to items that were not practiced during therapy sessions. Because these children had no or minimal vocal output prior to treatment, the acquisition of speech sounds and word approximations through AMMT represents a critical step in expressive language development in children with autism

Magnetoencephalography investigation of lexical access in aphasia

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-117).Aphasia is an acquired impairment of language ability that occurs secondary to brain damage, and auditory comprehension deficits are a defining component of aphasia. At the single-word level, these deficits are thought to arise from impaired phonological processing, semantic representations, or both. The present study examined spreading lexical activation in people with aphasia by implementing thorough clinical evaluation, a series of listening tasks, and a time sensitive means of tracking cortical activation. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to measure the cortical activity of 7 people with aphasia, 9 age-matched control participants, and 10 younger control participants as they completed an auditory lexical decision task and a passive listening task with phonemes. In the lexical decision task, target words were presented in three conditions of interest: semantically primed, where the target was preceded by a related word; identity primed, where the target was preceded by itself; and a control condition, where the target was preceded by an unrelated word. Behavioral reaction times and MEG data were collected in response to each target, and the M350, a MEG signal associated with lexical processing, was evaluated. MEG data collected during the passive listening task were used to evaluate the mismatch field (MMF), a response associated with the formation of an auditory memory trace. Analysis was conducted at both the group and single-subject levels.(cont.) All groups showed identity priming of the M350 response, although this was seen in the amplitude dimension for the control groups but in the latency dimension for the group with aphasia. The older control group showed semantic priming of the M350 and the younger group showed a marginally significant priming effect, while the group with aphasia failed to show this effect. There was evidence that some people with aphasia may have a delayed or absent M350 response. Finally, the behavioral results indicated that the younger and older control participants were using different strategies to complete the lexical decision task. These findings highlight the potential importance of latency differences when analyzing electrophysiological responses in aphasic populations. Furthermore, they indicate that some cognitive-linguistic tasks may induce different types of processing in older and younger groups.by Lauryn Rose Zipse.Ph.D

Structure of an AMMT trial.

<p>To illustrate the steps, the target phrase here is “more please.”</p

An illustration of an AMMT trial.

<p>Therapist guiding a child in the unison production of a target word while tapping the electronic drum pads.</p

Percentage of correctly produced target words before and after 40 sessions of AMMT.

<p>Percentage of correctly produced target words before and after 40 sessions of AMMT.</p

Graphs of each participant's CV production across the baseline, treatment, and follow-up probe sessions.

<p>Graphs of each participant's CV production across the baseline, treatment, and follow-up probe sessions.</p