Elaborated Semantic Feature Analysis Treatment: Lexicality and Generalization effects in case with anoamic aphasia

Papathanasiou, Ilias and Mesolora, Anthi and Mihou, Emilia and Papachristou, Georgia (2006) Elaborated Semantic Feature Analysis Treatment: Lexicality and Generalization effects in case with anoamic aphasia. [Clinical Aphasiology Paper]

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Abstract

Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA) is a treatment technique designed to improve the naming abilities by increasing the level of activation within a semantic network and subsequently enable the individual to have easier lexical retrieval. This technique was first described by Boyle and Coelho (1995), where it was applied in a case with mild non-fluent aphasia, resulting in improved confrontation naming of trained and untrained items but not generalization to connected speech. In reduplication study by Coelho et al (2000), SFA was used in a case with moderate fluent aphasia. where gains were made in both trained and untrained items during a confrontation naming task, as well as in connected speech. The authors suggested that the improvement in the connected speech it might be influenced by not only the differences in severity but also type of aphasia. Furthermore, they suggest that the effect of SFA intervention is reflected in an increase in communicative efficiency. Boyle (2004) investigated further the efficacy of SFA treatement in another two cases with fluent aphasia, one with anomic aphasia and one with Wernicke’s aphasia. In this study, she reported improvement in both cases in trained and untrained items, but no generalization effects on connected speech on the measures of mean words per minute, mean correct information units per minute or the percentage of all words that were correct information units. Conley and Coelho (2003) described a treatment approach in a case with chronic Broca’s aphasia, where they combined SFA with Response Elaboration Training (RET). In this case, they reported that the combined approached resulted in improvement the individual’s ability to retrieve noun words but it was unclear which approach contributed to the final outcome. However, they reported lexicality effects, as features of high familiarity words were more easily named than those of low familiarity words. The present study describes an Elaborated Semantic Feature Analysis (ESFA) treatment approach which was applied to improved word retrieval of object nouns in a case with non fluent anomic aphasia. The approach was based on the SFA approach (Boyle and Coelho, 1995; Coelho et al, 2000; Boyle, 2004), but also allowed the individual to elaborate the features described to a sentence. The purpose of this approach was to enable the individual to transfer the naming abilities to connected speech.

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