Efficacy of Group Conversation Intervention in Individuals with Severe Profiles of Aphasia.
Elizabeth Hoover, Alexandra McFee, Gayle DeDe
PMID 31869850WHAT IT FOUND
Five people with severe aphasia improved on different measures after conversation treatment.
Some standardized language gains did not last six weeks, and no single test captured everyone's change. Self-report and conversation measures varied.
Key findings
01Two participants improved significantly on the Comprehensive Aphasia Test after treatment, and one worsened significantly.
02No participant had a significant Comprehensive Aphasia Test change from pretreatment to maintenance.
03Two participants had narrative percent correct information units effect sizes greater than 0.5, and all other effect sizes were less than 0.1.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only five participants were analyzed, all male, and they came from the immediate treatment condition. Severe aphasia was defined by a Comprehensive Aphasia Test object naming score below 6.64 out of 32, and the Western Aphasia Battery was not administered. One eligible participant was excluded after a revised diagnosis of vascular dementia. The analyses were per participant and many conversation measures were numeric trends only because there were few participants and one data point per interval. BU04's posttreatment speech samples were missing because of technological difficulties. The Aphasia Communication Outcome Measure may not be sensitive for this group because its normative sample excluded or underrepresented people with severe aphasia, and large session-to-session differences were noted. Comprehensive Aphasia Test analyses collapsed across subtests, so gains in particular subtests could be missed. No single measure captured change in all participants.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The supplied article metadata lists NIH extramural research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that group conversation treatment is proven effective for severe aphasia. Only five participants were analyzed, results were inconsistent across measures, and no significant Comprehensive Aphasia Test change was maintained at six weeks.