Background: The typicality effect is present in neurologically intact populations for natural, ad-hoc, and well-defined categories. Although sparse, there is evidence of typicality effects in persons with chronic stroke aphasia for natural and ad-hoc categories. However, it is unknown exactly what influences the typicality effect in this…

This post hoc study investigated coverbal gesture patterns in two persons with chronic Wernicke's aphasia. They had both received therapy focusing on multimodal communication therapy, and their pre- and post-therapy verbal and gestural skills in face-to-face conversational interaction with their speech therapist were analysed by administering a…

Brain plasticity associated with anomia recovery in aphasia is poorly understood. Here, I review four recent studies from my lab that focused on brain modulation associated with long-term anomia outcome, its behavioral treatment, and the use of transcranial brain stimulation to enhance anomia treatment success in individuals with chronic aphasia…

This study presents results of post-treatment interviews following computer-based script training for persons with chronic aphasia. Each of the 23 participants received 9 weeks of AphasiaScripts training. Post-treatment interviews were conducted with the person with aphasia and/or a significant other person. The 23 interviews yielded 584 coded…

In this prospective study, data on incidence, stuttering characteristics, co-occurring speech disorders, and recovery of neurogenic stuttering in a large sample of stroke participants were assessed. Following stroke onset, 17 of 319 participants (5.3%; 95% CI, 3.2-8.3) met the criteria for neurogenic stuttering. Stuttering persisted in at least…

This study was designed to estimate test-retest reliability of orthographic speech intelligibility testing in speakers with aphasia and AOS and to examine its relationship to the consistency of speaker and listener responses. Monosyllabic single word speech samples were recorded from 13 speakers with coexisting aphasia and AOS. These words were…

Several studies have reported improved naming using the semantic feature analysis (SFA) approach in individuals with aphasia. Whether the SFA can be modified and still produce naming improvements in aphasia is unknown. The present study was designed to address this question by using a modified version of the SFA approach. Three, rather than the…

Purpose: To extend the use of the Spanish Computer-assisted Anomia Rehabilitation Program (CARP-2) for anomia from a single case to a group of 15 people with aphasia. To evaluate whether the treatment is active (Phase 1) for this group (Robey & Schultz, 1998), providing potential explanations as to why. Methods: Fifteen participants with chronic…

Purpose: Individuals with probable Alzheimer disease (pAD) are frequently impaired at picture naming. This study examined whether a semantic elaboration task would facilitate naming in pAD, and whether training either semantically typical or atypical stimulus items facilitated generalized improvement in picture naming and category generation…

Purpose: Many adults with aphasia demonstrate concomitant deficits in working memory (WM), but such deficits are difficult to quantify because of a lack of validated measures as well as the complex interdependence between language and WM. We examined the feasibility, reliability, and internal consistency of an "n"-back task for…

This study investigated noun-verb retrieval patterns of 30 adults with chronic undifferentiated schizophrenia and 67 typical adults, to determine if schizophrenia affected nouns (associated with temporal lobe function) differently from verbs (associated with frontal lobe function). Stimuli were homophonic homographic homonyms, balanced according…

In the past verb retrieval problems were associated primarily with agrammatism and noun retrieval difficulties with fluent aphasia. With regards to fluent aphasia, so far in the literature, three distinct patterns of verb/noun dissociations have been described for individuals with fluent anomic aphasia in languages with different underlying forms;…

In this study we investigated the recovery patterns of language and cognitive functions in patients with post-traumatic language processing deficits and in patients with aphasia following a stroke. The correlation of specific language functions and cognitive functions was analyzed in the acute phase and 6 months later. Significant recovery of the…

Discourse produced by speakers with aphasia contains rich and valuable information for researchers to understand the manifestation of aphasia as well as for clinicians to plan specific treatment components for their clients. Various approaches to investigate aphasic discourse have been proposed in the English literature. However, this is not the…

This paper discusses the use of single subject controlled experimental designs for investigating the effects of treatment for aphasia. A brief historical perspective is presented, followed by discussions of the advantages and disadvantages of single subject and group approaches, the basic requirements of single subject experimental research, and…