Remediation of sentence processing deficits in aphasia using a computer-based microworld

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psycholinguistics
• Speech and Language Therapy

Background:

• Aphasic patients often struggle with sentence comprehension, specifically mapping syntactic structures to semantic roles (Byng, 1988).
• Previous therapy targeting locative prepositions improved comprehension of both prepositional and reversible verb sentences.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the efficacy of targeted therapy on sentence comprehension in 14 aphasic patients with stable deficits.
• To investigate the impact of verb versus preposition therapy on sentence-picture matching tasks.

Main Methods:

• Computer-based sentence-picture matching assessments and therapy using a limited 'microworld'.
• Two patient groups (A and B) received sequential therapy for verb and preposition sentence comprehension over 3 weeks.
• Cross-over design allowed assessment of treatment order effects and generalization to untreated sentences and a 'Real World Test'.

Main Results:

• Group A showed a 'cross-over' effect: verb therapy improved verb comprehension, and preposition therapy improved preposition comprehension, with gains retained.
• Improvements were observed on untreated sentences and the 'Real World Test', but not on morphology comprehension, indicating treatment specificity.
• While most patients improved, statistically significant gains on both verbs and prepositions were seen in only three individuals; gains were maintained at 5 months.

Conclusions:

• Targeted therapy can improve sentence comprehension in aphasic patients, particularly for verb and preposition processing.
• The findings support the 'mapping' hypothesis and demonstrate the potential for long-term maintenance of therapeutic gains.
• Treatment specificity was evident, with no improvements in morphology comprehension.