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Background Anomia treatments typically focus on single word retrieval, although the ultimate goal of treatment is to improve functional communication at the level of discourse in daily situations. Aims The focus of this study was to investigate the impact of two effective anomia treatments on discourse production as measured by a story retell task. Method and Procedure Fifty-seven people with aphasia were randomized to receive either a phoneme-based treatment, Phonomotor Therapy (PMT; 28 participants), or a lexical-semantic treatment, Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA; 29 participants). Groups were matched for age, aphasia severity, education, and years post onset. All received 56-60 hr of treatment in a massed treatment schedule. Therapy was delivered for a total of 8-10 hr/week over the course of 6-7 weeks. All participants completed testing 1 week prior to treatment (A1), immediately following treatment (A2), and again 3 months later (A3). Discourse was analyzed through the percentage of correct information units at each time point. Outcomes and Results Both groups showed nonsignificant improvements from pretreatment to immediately posttreatment. The PMT group showed significant improvement 3 months posttreatment, while the SFA group returned to near-baseline levels. Conclusion These results add to our understanding of the effects of both PMT and SFA. Future research should address understanding variability in discourse outcomes across studies and the effects of aphasia severity and individual participant and treatment factors on treatment outcomes for both of these approaches.

Purpose A significant relationship between verbal short-term memory (STM) and language performance in people with aphasia has been found across studies. However, very few studies have examined the predictive value of verbal STM in treatment outcomes. This study aims to determine if verbal STM can be used as a predictor of treatment success. Method Retrospective data from 25 people with aphasia in a larger randomized controlled trial of phonomotor treatment were analyzed. Digit and word spans from immediately pretreatment were run in multiple linear regression models to determine whether they predict magnitude of change from pre- to posttreatment and follow-up naming accuracy. Pretreatment, immediately posttreatment, and 3 months posttreatment digit and word span scores were compared to determine if they changed following a novel treatment approach. Results Verbal STM, as measured by digit and word spans, did not predict magnitude of change in naming accuracy from pre- to posttreatment nor from pretreatment to 3 months posttreatment. Furthermore, digit and word spans did not change from pre- to posttreatment or from pretreatment to 3 months posttreatment in the overall analysis. A post hoc analysis revealed that only the less impaired group showed significant changes in word span scores from pretreatment to 3 months posttreatment. Discussion The results suggest that digit and word spans do not predict treatment gains. In a less severe subsample of participants, digit and word span scores can change following phonomotor treatment; however, the overall results suggest that span scores may not change significantly. The implications of these findings are discussed within the broader purview of theoretical and empirical associations between aphasic language and verbal STM processing.

Purpose: This study explored the relationship between anomia and verbal short-term memory (STM) in the context of an interactive activation language processing model., Method: Twenty-four individuals with aphasia and reduced STM spans (i.e., impaired immediate serial recall of words) completed a picture-naming task and a word pair repetition task (a measure of verbal STM). Correlations between verbal STM and word retrieval errors made on the picture-naming task were examined., Results: A significant positive correlation between naming accuracy and verbal span length was found. More intricate verbal STM analyses examined the relationship between picture-naming error types (i.e., semantic vs. phonological) and 2 measures of verbal STM: (a) location of errors on the word pair repetition task and (b) imageability and frequency effects on the word pair repetition task. Results indicated that, as phonological word retrieval errors (relative to semantic) increase, bias toward correct repetition of high-imageability words increases., Conclusions: Results suggest that word retrieval and verbal STM tasks likely rely on a partially shared temporary linguistic activation process.

Purpose: The primary characteristics used to define acquired apraxia of speech (AOS) have evolved to better reflect a disorder of motor planning/programming. However, there is debate regarding the feature of relatively consistent error location and type., Method: Ten individuals with acquired AOS and aphasia and 11 individuals with aphasia without AOS participated in this study. In the context of a 2-group experimental design, error consistency was examined via 5 repetitions of 30 multisyllabic words. The influence of error rate, severity of impairment, and stimulus presentation condition (blocked vs. random) on error consistency was also explored, as well as between-groups differences in the types of errors produced., Results: Groups performed similarly on consistency of error location; however, adults with AOS demonstrated greater variability of error type in a blocked presentation condition only. Stimulus presentation condition, error rate, and severity of impairment did not influence error consistency in either group. Groups differed in the production of phonetic errors (e.g., sound distortions) but not phonemic errors., Conclusions: Overall, findings do not support relatively consistent errors as a differentiating characteristic of AOS.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate effects of a multimodal treatment of phonology, phonomotor treatment, on the reading abilities of persons with aphasia (PWA) with phonological alexia., Method: In a retrospective, single-group design, this study presents pre-, post-, and 3-months posttreatment data for 8 PWA with phonological alexia. Participants completed 60 hr of phonomotor treatment over 6 weeks. Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests and group effect sizes comparing pre-, immediately post-, and 3-months posttreatment performance on tests of phonological processing and reading were performed., Results: Group data showed phonological processing and oral reading of real words and nonwords improved significantly posttreatment; these gains were maintained 3 months later. No group improvement was found for reading comprehension; however, one individual did show improvement immediately post- and 3-months posttreatment., Conclusions: This study provides support that phonomotor treatment is a viable approach to improve phonological processing and oral reading for PWA with phonological alexia. The lack of improvement with comprehension is inconsistent with prior work using similar treatments (Conway et al., 1998; Kendall et al., 2003). However, this difference can, in part, be accounted for by differences in variables, such as treatment intensity and frequency, outcome measures, and alexia severity.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of phonomotor treatment on the types of errors produced during a confrontation naming task for people with aphasia (PWA)., Method: Ten PWA received 60 hr of phonomotor treatment across 6 weeks. Confrontation naming abilities were measured before and after treatment, and responses were coded as correct or incorrect. Incorrect responses were coded for error type. Paired t tests comparing pre-, post- and 3 months posttreatment naming accuracy and error type were performed., Results: Group data showed that naming accuracy on trained items improved significantly immediately post treatment, and gains were maintained 3 months later. Naming accuracy on untrained items did not show significant improvement immediately post treatment or 3 months later. Results of error type analysis were not significant. However, a decrease in omission errors and an increase in mixed errors were noted immediately post treatment for naming of untrained items., Conclusion: Results suggest that intensive phonomotor treatment improved lexical-retrieval abilities and may have triggered a shift in linguistic processing, as indicated by a decrease in omission errors on trained items and an increase in mixed errors on untrained items.

Purpose: Studies investigating language deficits in individuals with left temporal-lobe epilepsy have consistently demonstrated impairments in proper name retrieval. The aim of this Phase I rehabilitation study was to investigate the effects of a linguistically distributed word retrieval treatment on proper name retrieval in an individual with left temporal-lobe epilepsy., Method: A 61-year old right-handed male with left temporal-lobe epilepsy (clinical onset at the age of 50) and a deficit in proper name retrieval participated in this study. A single-subject, repeated-probe ABAA design with testing before, immediately after, and 3 months after treatment completion was employed. Proper name retrieval treatment was administered 2 hr per day for 5 days., Results: Results demonstrated improved naming on trained items and maintenance of trained items 3 months after treatment completion., Conclusion: Treatment, which took advantage of the individual's undamaged linguistic networks, promoted the reorganization of networks supporting proper naming, leading to improved proper name retrieval. Further research replicating these findings in individuals with varying degrees of proper name retrieval impairment is warranted. Additionally, the mechanism behind the observed improvements in proper name retrieval needs to be investigated further using functional neuroimaging.

Purpose: To provide preliminary evidence of the construct validity of the Communicative Effectiveness Survey (CES) for individuals with dysarthria and idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD)., Method: In a prospective, quasi-experimental design, 25 participants each were assigned to 3 groups (N = 75): PD and dysarthria, non-PD and no dysarthria, and PD significant others (SOs). Mean CES ratings were used to test for significant differences between the PD and non-PD group, and PD and SO rating of PD's communicative effectiveness. Multiple linear regression tested for significant predictors of CES ratings for PD group only using sentence intelligibility and spontaneous speech intelligibility scores as predictor variables., Results: The PD group rated their CES significantly lower than did the non-PD group. The PD group rated their CES significantly higher than their SOs rated them. Neither speech intelligibility score was a significant predictor of CES ratings. In follow-up analysis, the Hoehn and Yahr PD staging accounted for 47% of the variability in CES ratings for the PD group participants., Conclusions: This study provides preliminary evidence of the CES's construct validity. Clinicians and researchers who assess and treat individuals with PD may consider adding an additional assessment to the traditional clinical measures (i.e., speech intelligibility) by obtaining a measure of communicative effectiveness.