Phonological Treatment for Anomia: A Scoping Review

The aim of this scoping review was to summarize treatment characteristics (with a focus on treatment ingredients), participant demographic characteristics, and outcomes in the research literature for phonological treatment for anomia.

Relevant articles reporting on phonological treatment for anomia in acquired aphasia were identified by a librarian through a comprehensive database search as well as citation chasing of five articles. Title and abstract screening, full-text screening, and data extraction related to the research questions were completed in Covidence by two researchers.

A total of 110 articles reporting 152 treatment conditions met inclusion criteria for the study. Treatment conditions generally included relatively small sample sizes of individuals with chronic poststroke aphasia. Treatment conditions were categorized into five broad categories: cueing (i.e., direct phonological cueing), phonological components analysis, contextual priming (i.e., indirect phonological cueing), phonomotor treatment, and other phonological processing approaches (i.e., other types of phonological treatment targeting underlying phonological skills). These treatment categories used a variety of overlapping treatment ingredients. Outcomes were generally positive for naming of trained items with variability for generalization to untrained items and limited reporting of non-impairment-based measures (e.g., functional communication, quality of life).

Further review and meta-analysis as well as prospective intervention research for phonological treatment for anomia is needed to identify who may benefit most from phonological treatment for anomia and to determine optimal treatment design parameters.

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.29646344.