A novel approach to training verbs in two individuals with chronic aphasia

Davis, Christine H. and Oliver, Jane (2012) A novel approach to training verbs in two individuals with chronic aphasia. [Clinical Aphasiology Paper]

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Abstract

A novel intervention for the rehabilitation of verb naming disorders was applied to two individuals with chronic aphasia. This intervention examined the effectiveness of intensive implicit semantic training for improving verb production. This was done without the requirement of an overt response. Implicit interventions, such as these, practiced without overt speech, can improve verbal output, hypothetically through activation of the interrelated semantic, lexical and phonological networks known to underlie word production. For the individuals with aphasia and apraxia of speech, implicit therapy has the advantage of reducing production error and the associated effects of reinforcing the neural circuits that are activated while producing errors. Prior work has shown that error-reducing training can improve naming and discourse and these results were accompanied by increased activation of the left inferior frontal cortex during verb generation tasks as measured by fMRI (Davis, Harrington & Baynes, 2006). The use of a similar approach, implicit phoneme manipulation to treat apraxia of speech, also improved speech production at the word level (Davis, Farias, & Baynes, 2008).

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