Effects of Phonomotor Treatment on discourse production.
JoAnn P Silkes, Gerasimos Fergadiotis, Rebecca Hunting Pompon and 2 others
PMID 30956383WHAT IT FOUND
In 26 people with chronic aphasia, 60 hours of Phonomotor Treatment was followed by more efficient communication right after treatment, while speech became more informative at three months, not immediately.
Key findings
01The average number of useful information units per minute was 56.68 before treatment, 63.23 immediately after treatment, and 62.33 at maintenance, and both later values were significantly higher than the pre-treatment value.
02The average percent of useful information units was 70.68% before treatment and 75.33% at maintenance, and that difference was significant; the average immediately after treatment was 75.24%, but the difference before and immediately after treatment was not significant.
03Average language sample length was approximately 387 words before treatment, 244 immediately after treatment, and 255 at maintenance, and none of the comparisons between time points were significant.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The analysis included 26 participants, and 2 cases had missing recordings for some time points, so the sample was small and not complete for every analysis. Discourse was probed through only one structured interview with open-ended questions, so other communicative contexts may have produced different results. The same interview prompts were repeated over time, which may have contributed to the observed changes. The treating clinicians elicited the discourse samples, although blinded unfamiliar listeners scored them. Several participants had relatively high language skills, so ceiling effects were possible. The paper did not analyse whether age, time post-onset, aphasia severity, or naming ability affected generalisation to discourse. The immediate and delayed groups were combined for this discourse analysis, so this report does not directly compare treated versus delayed participants. Only discourse outcomes are discussed here; naming and other outcomes were reported elsewhere.
Declared interests
The authors reported no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that Phonomotor Treatment immediately makes discourse more informative. The average percent of useful information units was 75.24% immediately after treatment, but the difference from pre-treatment was not significant.