Purpose: The purpose of this study was to review treatment studies of semantic feature analysis (SFA) for persons with aphasia. The review documents how SFA is used, appraises the quality of the included studies, and evaluates the efficacy of SFA. Method: The following electronic databases were systematically searched (last search February 2017):…

Purpose: Recovery from aphasia is thought to depend on neural plasticity, that is, functional reorganization of surviving brain regions such that they take on new or expanded roles in language processing. To make progress in characterizing the nature of this process, we need feasible, reliable, and valid methods for identifying language regions of…

Purpose: Evidence has shown that group conversation treatment may improve communication and reduce social isolation for people with aphasia. However, little is known about the impact of conversation group treatment on measures of discourse. This project explored the impact of conversation treatment on measures of monologic discourse. Method: In…

Background: Treatment fidelity (TF), that is, the degree to which the treatment delivery has adhered to protocol, is an important aspect of establishing treatment validity and reliability. Research has shown that establishing TF is only done in a small percentage of aphasia treatment studies. Aims: This project supports the work of the CommuniCATE…

Background: Cognitive-linguistic treatments and interventions targeting communication have been developed within the context of primary progressive aphasia (PPA), however knowledge about the scope of generalization and maintenance of therapy gains considering PPA subtypes remains scarce and awaits systematic investigation. Aims: To analyse the…

Background: There is a wide agreement that family and friends of people with aphasia (PWA) can play a crucial role in the rehabilitation of interpersonal communication. Therefore, speech and language therapists (SLTs) should include family and friends in the process of therapy. However, little has been said about the role of caregivers of severely…

Background: Acquired brain injury (ABI), such as Parkinson's disease, dementia or stroke, can result in communication difficulties that lead to an impoverished ability to connect meaningfully with others. Choral singing is a complex task that uses multiple brain regions which are also responsible for language and communication skills. The…

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to investigate how emotional arousal and valence affect confrontational naming accuracy and response time (RT) in people with mild-to-moderate aphasia compared with adults without aphasia. We hypothesized that negative and positive emotions would facilitate naming for people with aphasia (PWA) but lead to…

Purpose: The aims of the study were to determine dual-task effects on content accuracy, delivery speed, and perceived effort during narrative discourse in people with moderate, mild, or no aphasia and to explore subjective reactions to retelling a story with a concurrent task. Method: Two studies (1 quantitative and 1 qualitative) were conducted.…

Purpose: Clinically accessible and concise measures of acute stress in adults with aphasia are lacking. The current article evaluated some psychometric features of a single-item self-report measure of acute stress in adults with aphasia, the Simple Aphasia Stress Scale. Method: Three archival data sets utilizing varying iterations of a stress…

Purpose: An increasing number of anomia treatment studies have coupled traditional word retrieval accuracy outcome measures with more fine-grained analysis of word retrieval errors to allow for more comprehensive measurement of treatment-induced changes in word retrieval. The aim of this study was to examine changes in picture naming errors after…

Reorganization of language networks in aphasia takes advantage of the facts that (a) the brain is an organ of plasticity, with neuronal changes occurring throughout the life span, including following brain damage; (b) plasticity is highly experience dependent; and (c) as with any learning system, language reorganization involves a synergistic…

Purpose: This study investigated the relationship between non-orthographic language abilities and reading in order to examine assumptions of the primary systems hypothesis and further our understanding of language processing poststroke. Method: Performance on non-orthographic semantic, phonologic, and syntactic tasks, as well as oral reading and…

Purpose: Group conversation treatment has the potential to improve communication and reduce social isolation for people with aphasia. This project examined how 2 conflicting hypotheses--treatment dosage and group dynamics--affect treatment outcomes. Method: Forty-eight participants with chronic aphasia were randomly assigned to either a dyad, a…

Background: Aphasia assessment is traditionally divided into formal and informal approaches. Informal assessment is useful in developing a rich understanding of the person with aphasia's performance, e.g., describing performance in the context of real-world activities, and exploring the impact of environmental and/or partner supports upon…