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Published on: July 2, 2013
Narrative Discourse Predictors of Response to Naming Intervention in Aphasia
Dirk B den Ouden1,2, Laura Giglio1, Sigfus Kristinsson1
1University of South Carolina, Columbia.
Summary
Narrative discourse predicts naming treatment success in aphasia patients. Lexical retrieval therapy improves discourse, highlighting its clinical importance for assessment and outcomes.
Area of Science:
- Neurolinguistics
- Speech-Language Pathology
Background:
- Picture-naming tasks are common in aphasia studies, but narrative discourse better reflects real-world language function.
- Discourse features may predict how well individuals with aphasia respond to naming treatments, but this is not well studied.
Purpose of the Study:
- To determine if baseline discourse variables predict naming treatment gains in chronic stroke survivors with aphasia.
- To investigate if discourse variables change after phonological and semantic naming therapy.
Main Methods:
- Analyzed narrative discourse samples from 95 participants with aphasia using various linguistic features.
- Employed mixed-effects modeling to assess the predictive role of baseline discourse on naming gains (Philadelphia Naming Test) and treatment-induced changes.
Main Results:
- Higher aphasia severity and lower baseline propositional density predicted greater naming improvement.
- Improved discourse measures (MLU, WPM, core lexicon) were observed post-treatment and maintained at 6 months.
- Phonological therapy specifically increased words per minute.
Conclusions:
- Discourse variables, particularly propositional efficiency and lexical appropriateness, predict treatment response beyond aphasia severity.
- Lexical retrieval therapy positively impacts narrative discourse, supporting its use in assessment and outcome evaluation.
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