Script training and generalization for people with aphasia

To examine the effects and generalization of a modified script training intervention, delivered partly via videoconferencing, on dialogue scripts that were produced by 2 individuals with aphasia.

Each participant was trained on 2 personally relevant scripts. Intervention sessions occurred 3 times per week, with a combination of in-person meetings and videoconferencing, and lasted for 3 weeks per script. This study followed a multiple baseline design across scripts. Measures of accuracy, grammatical productivity, speaking rate, and articulatory fluency were obtained during baseline, intervention, and maintenance phases. Generalization probes were administered by challenging participants to engage in a conversation about their script topic with conversation partners who did not follow the script.

Both participants showed improvement on all dependent variables for both scripts during and after the intervention phase. Generalization samples showed improved grammatical morpheme use and increased rate of speech over prebaseline samples.

There is evidence that script training intervention can improve accuracy, grammatical productivity, speaking rate, and articulatory fluency in script production tasks as well as in more functional conversational tasks. Videoconferencing is a viable method of conducting script training intervention when it is supported by face-to-face intervention sessions, slight modifications to the procedure, and an emphasis on self-cuing skills.