Background: The typicality effect is present in neurologically intact populations for natural, ad-hoc, and well-defined categories. Although sparse, there is evidence of typicality effects in persons with chronic stroke aphasia for natural and ad-hoc categories. However, it is unknown exactly what influences the typicality effect in this…

This post hoc study investigated coverbal gesture patterns in two persons with chronic Wernicke's aphasia. They had both received therapy focusing on multimodal communication therapy, and their pre- and post-therapy verbal and gestural skills in face-to-face conversational interaction with their speech therapist were analysed by administering a…

Several studies have reported improved naming using the semantic feature analysis (SFA) approach in individuals with aphasia. Whether the SFA can be modified and still produce naming improvements in aphasia is unknown. The present study was designed to address this question by using a modified version of the SFA approach. Three, rather than the…

Purpose: Individuals with probable Alzheimer disease (pAD) are frequently impaired at picture naming. This study examined whether a semantic elaboration task would facilitate naming in pAD, and whether training either semantically typical or atypical stimulus items facilitated generalized improvement in picture naming and category generation…

In the past verb retrieval problems were associated primarily with agrammatism and noun retrieval difficulties with fluent aphasia. With regards to fluent aphasia, so far in the literature, three distinct patterns of verb/noun dissociations have been described for individuals with fluent anomic aphasia in languages with different underlying forms;…

The effect of semantic grouping on confrontation-naming performances of 16 fluent and 10 nonfluent aphasic adults was examined. Performances were not uniformly facilitated in one naming condition over the other. Some patients, however, did appear to display performance discrepancies between the two conditions. (Author/CL)

Spaced retrieval (SR) has recently been modified to target anomia in persons with aphasia (PWA). It relies on a strict management of the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) where the time between stimulus presentations is doubled or halved based on response accuracy. Although SR is successful in treating anomia, it remains to be studied whether the…

The lexical-semantic and syntactic abilities of a group of individuals with chronic nonthalamic subcortical (NS) lesions following stroke (n=6) were investigated using the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) picture description task [Kertesz, A. (1982). "The Western aphasia battery." New York: Grune and Stratton] and compared with those of a…

The article proposes a reeducation program for conduction aphasics with reproductive difficulties. Program characteristics include analysis and manipulation of visual stimuli (written words and syllables), suppression of the compensation effect of the spared lexical-semantic system; and progressive increase in length and complexity of phonological…

Connected speech of 134 healthy, Canadian French-speaking adults, grouped according to age and education level, was analyzed using an aphasia battery. Results demonstrated that older subjects with less education produced fewer content units and were less efficient in transmitting lexico-semantic information. Effects of age and education level on…