Repetition Priming Treatment for Anomia: Effects of Single- and Multiple-Exemplar Protocols.

Introduction: Repetition priming can lead to improved naming ability in people with aphasia, but concerns have arisen from prior research about using only a single picture exemplar for each target. Specifically, it is unclear whether the observed improvements were due to learning simple correspondences between particular words and pictures rather than changes at a deeper level of lexical– semantic processing. In addition, implications for generalization after training with single exemplars were unclear. This study replicated and extended previous work to address these questions. Method: Five participants with chronic aphasia participated in this repeatedmeasures design study, which repeatedly paired words and pictures with no feedback provided. Two participants engaged in a single-exemplar condition, with a single picture exemplar of each target used for every presentation of that target. The remaining three participants engaged in a multiple-exemplar condition, with several different pictures used for each target. Half of these targets used training pictures during naming probes, whereas half did not. Results: Primed items led to greater improvements in naming than items that were practiced but not primed. The data indicate that improvements may extend beyond stimulus-specific correspondences. Maintenance and generalization effects were mixed. Conclusions: These data provide further support for the efficacy of repetition priming treatment for anomia. Implications and future directions are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]