Researchers utilize various discourse analysis methods to quantify linguistic gains in PWA following treatment, one of the most common being Correct Information Units (CIU). This technique examines lexical-semantic content and identifies words that are “accurate, relevant and informative relative to the eliciting stimulus” (Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993). Furthermore, several researchers have documented the reliability of this measure and established “it is indicative of unfamiliar listeners’ ratings of informativeness and of socially relevant changes in the verbal output of individuals with aphasia” (Papathanasiou & Coppens, 2017, pg. 75). One training program that specifically targets increased CIUs is Response Elaboration Training …show more content…
Expansion, model, reinforce 3. “Wh” cue 4. Combine patient responses, model, reinforce 5. Request repetition, model 6. Reinforce model. Clinical probes were administered to identify progress and during the 17th probe the participant met training criterion. Achievement of training criterion was defined as the participant eliciting a minimum of five content words in eight of ten responses. Maintenance of this skill was observed across five additional probes. Furthermore, a moderate degree of carryover was exhibited when the participant was presented with non-trained items. This was the first study to support RET and more current literature has continued to strengthen this evidence. Wambaugh, Nessler and Wright (2012) conducted a multiple baseline design with six participants to examine the effects of M-RET in PWA. This modified approach utilized procedural discourse and personal recounts, rather than narrative discourse. All participants had experienced a single stroke according to medical records, were between the ages of 46 and 70, ranged from 19 and 96 months post onset of stroke and had significant word retrieval difficulties. The experimental design included probing of two sets of procedural discourse items and a personal recount condition. Baseline was continued until the probed skills were stable. Then, treatment was applied. There were three contexts to which treatment was provided: 1) discourse production in response to a set of 10 pictures, 2) discourse
Aphasia is a communication disorder that affects many adults and families. Aphasia occurs as a result of damage to the language-specific areas of the brain (ASHA, 2014). Individuals with aphasia may experience difficulties with oral language, receptive language, memory, attention writing, and reading. There are a myriad of approaches designed for the treatment of aphasia. Two treatment approaches, Promoting Aphasics Communicative Effectiveness (P.A.C.E.) and Constraint Induced Language Therapy (C.I.L.T.), and their efficacy in regard to available evidence will be discussed below.
With this therapy approach, clients have a greater opportunity to improve more than one area of language and communication when compared to Constraint Induced Language Therapy. Computer-Based Language Therapy gives individuals the opportunity to work through the program at their own pace and also present the instructions and stimuli in various ways. Even though there is not a great deal of evidence for these two approaches, there is more evidence towards the Computer-Based interventions. This study provided a more randomized study when it came to the participant’s and their therapy. Even though there are limitations to every study, out of these two, Computer-Based Language Therapy is a better approach to work with individuals with aphasia (Paul
Clinical Pragmatics reflects an emerging awareness that some communication difficulties could not be attributed to ‘purely’ linguistic problems. For a long time before that, practicing speech and language therapists had worked with children and adults whose primary difficulties seemed to lie with the understanding and/or production of connected discourse. (‘Relevance Theory and Communication Disorders’ Eeva Leinonen and Nuala Ryder, 2008.)
The effects of two treatments for word retrieval impairments in aphasic individuals. With the use of errorless naming treatment (ENT) and gestural facilitation of naming (GES). The effects of the two treatments that were used for a daily picture naming/gesture production probe measure and in standardized aphasia tests and communication rating scales were administered across phases of treatment. (p.235)
A contributing factor to this is how difficult it is for people with aphasia to produce sentences that flow smoothly and to connect their sentences. Computer software is helpful in speech therapy because it allows the patients to be able to record themselves speaking, replay it so they can hear exactly what they sound like, and be able to string together partial sentences. This computer program helps the patient produce sentences as they are being formulated. The goal of this program is to “investigate the utility of a two-step treatment that supplements improvements achieved from the use of the software with explicit structural treatment.” (Aphasiology 2009). The results of this study show that this specific approach improves the speech of patients suffering from aphasia, even chronic and non-fluent
Both verbal and non-verbal communication repair strategies have been shown to resolve communication breakdowns in conversation (Orange et al. 1996). Expressive repair strategies that have been shown to be effective with persons with AD include verbatim repetition and paraphrased repetition (Bourgeois 2002, Gentry and Fisher 2007, Mahendra et al. 2005, Small et al. 1997, Tappen et al. 1997, Wilson et al. 2012b). Simplifying original statements by removing embedded clauses also is an effective repair strategy (Kemper and Harden 1999, Small and Perry 2005, 2012). When sentence completion is difficult due to word-finding problems, it is helpful to fill in missing words (Watson et al. 1999). However, it is equally to include one idea in each statement instead of providing more than one proposition in a single utterance (Rochon et al. 1994, Wilson et al. 2012b). Combining verbal and nonverbal communication
Aphasia can cause problems with speaking, listening, reading, writing, understanding speech, and thinking of words when speaking or writing. The exact symptoms involved with a particular patient depends on the type and severity of the injury to the brain. It affects about 20 percent of stroke patients.
The topic of this annotated bibliography is communicating with people who have Aphasia. Aphasia is neurological condition that occurs when the tissues in the left hemisphere of the brain that are responsible for speech, reading and writing are impaired (National Institute of Neurological Disorders, 2013). The main signs of this disorder are: trouble in articulating oneself when speaking, difficulty understanding speech, and problems with reading and writing. Aphasia is usually caused by a stroke, severe head trauma, brain tumors, and brain infections (National Institute of Neurological Disorders, 2013). Aspasia is more common in elderly individuals, The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) states that Aphasia will occur in 15% percent of persons under the age of 65 and will increase to 43% for people that are 85 years of age and older (National Institute of Neurological Disorders, 2013).
During the clinical observations I observed a 60-year-old man whose clinical diagnosis is non-fluent aphasia. To improve on his conversation skills he has worked with the clinician using conversational therapy. When viewing the session, the client expressed an understanding when asked questions on cars and movies. Most of the time he was intelligible, but it becomes hard to understand him when he stops to retrieve a word. As this takes place, he uses SAF or AAC’s triggering for the word he did not remember. His AAC’s consisted of unaided and aided communication systems using his body to receive kinesthetic feedbacks and his phone. He not only expressed his ideas, but demonstrates an interest on his goals for this session and semester. By asking
For what type of problem is this treatment intended? This treatment is intended to improve speech production and use of informative language in persons with moderately severe non-fluent aphasia.
Aphasia is a language disorder that can be the result of a brain injury. An individual that is suffering from aphasia may experience difficulty speaking, writing, reading, or comprehending. There are three different types of Aphasia that differ in various ways. First, Wernicke’s Aphasia is the inability to grasp the meaning of words and sentences that have been produced by another individual. This type of aphasia is also known as “fluent aphasia” or “receptive aphasia”. Wernicke patients’ speech may come across like a jumble of words or jargon, but it is very well articulated and they have no issue producing their own connected speech. If the patient is consecutively making errors, it is common for them to be unaware of their difficulties, and not realize that their sentences don’t make sense. The severity of the disorder varies depending on the patient, and the disorder results form damage in the left posterior temporal region of the brain, which is also known as Wernicke’s area.
After suffering from a stroke, many victims go through rehabilitation to help regain the language skills they lost from their stroke. Specific abilities that are lost or impaired are speech and language skills, which result in acquiring aphasia. In 2001, constraint induced aphasia therapy (CIAT) was introduced by Friedemann Pulvermuller. It is a therapeutic technique that allows one to achieve their individual vocational communication needs. CIAT is known to be one of the most successful forms of therapy for aphasiac patients with promising and positive outcomes. Because of CIAT’s stringent treatment structure, one’s brain is trained to use its cognitive and vocational abilities that may have been damaged during the stroke. CIAT requires patients to use spoken language instead of other forms of nonverbal communication that they naturally want to use. Unlike many other forms of therapy, CIAT helps one to expand their expressive output abilities and their personal language production skills. Although stroke rehabilitation does not entirely restore brain damage, constraint induced aphasia therapy can significantly help one achieve their vocational communication needs again.
Aphasia can be defined as an impairment of language that occurs due to focal brain damage to the language dominant hemisphere ( Darley, 1990). Several researchers have been able to prove that Aphasics tend to Communicate better than they talk, as at least one of the language domains remain intact. Aphasia clients with verbal limitations tend to compensate it by other modes of communication such as gestures, writing, sign language, etc.. Traumatic Brain Injury ( TBI), on the other hand, is a heterogenous disorder that is associated with the presence of multifocal cerebral damage. Most clients with permenant cognitive deficits after the TBI is characterized
As Thompson states, “A sufferer of Broca 's aphasia may understand completely the sentences of others. However, he may not be able to speak at all, or may speak in sentences that are hard to understand” (Thompson, 2013). Toivonen, a professor at Carleton University, discussed the significance of information flow in the brain using the example of reading out loud. This example illustrates the phenomenon that when an area of the information pathway is damaged, correspondingly, the message-relay can become interrupted. First and for most, the process of articulating begins with the Wernicke’s area of the brain activating when an individual accesses and interprets the lexicon, their mental dictionary. From there, the arcuate fascicles, a bundle of nerve fibres, transmits information sent from the Wernicke’s area to the Broca’s area. The Broca’s area then interprets this information and transmits articulatory information to the motor cortex. Finally, the motor cortex directs movement of the muscles to produce and pronounce speech. (Toivonen,
Ruby’s conversational language (spontaneous, expressive language) was assessed using an informal observation technique by having a conversation about therapy and her symptoms. Expressive language was further assessed using an informal story re-telling assessment using picture prompts of the story ‘Cinderella’. Ruby was also assessed using one unpublished picture naming test as well as several formal verbal naming tests. This was done using subtests from the Pyramid and Palm Trees test and the Comprehensive Aphasia Test (CAT). Her repetition and reading aloud of both real words and non-words was also formally assessed using further subtests of the Psycholinguistic Assessments of Language Processing in Aphasia (PALPA). An interview was conducted to ascertain the degree in which Ruby’s impairments impacted upon her activities and participation in everyday life. This interview was conducted by the Occupational Therapist with Ruby and her husband Michael.