Treatment of the Linguistic and Temporal Components of Lexical Activation to Improve Word Retrieval in Aphasia.
Nadine Martin, Jessica Obermeyer, Julie Schlesinger and 1 others
PMID 36188998WHAT IT FOUND
Delayed repetition treatment helped some people with aphasia, but only those whose word retrieval broke down specifically when they had to wait before speaking.
For these patients, practicing repetition with a 5-second pause improved word access and general language scores.
Key findings
01Treatment gains were largest for the two participants who showed a specific deficit in maintaining word activation over time, as evidenced by their repetition accuracy dropping significantly after a delay.
02Improvements on the treatment task were more common when the practice items were repeated across sessions rather than when novel items were introduced each time.
03One participant improved on both repeated and novel probe items, while two others showed no significant change from baseline on either type.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Very small sample size (n=5) limits generalizability. All participants were male and had left hemisphere strokes. The study design did not include a control group for the treatment itself, relying on single-subject baseline comparisons. Item exposure was confounded with treatment effects in some analyses, though the authors attempted to control for this by using novel items.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The research was supported by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.
The easy way to misread this
Do not apply this treatment to all patients with word retrieval deficits. It was ineffective for two of the five participants who did not show the specific profile of an activation maintenance impairment, and gains were inconsistent when novel items were used.