Purpose: Evidence has shown that group conversation treatment may improve communication and reduce social isolation for people with aphasia. However, little is known about the impact of conversation group treatment on measures of discourse. This project explored the impact of conversation treatment on measures of monologic discourse. Method: In…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop and pilot a novel treatment framework called "BEARS" (Balancing Effort, Accuracy, and Response Speed). People with aphasia (PWA) have been shown to maladaptively balance speed and accuracy during language tasks. BEARS is designed to train PWA to balance speed-accuracy trade-offs and…

Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative condition characterized by language and cognitive decline. Word-retrieval deficits are the most common PPA symptom and contribute to impaired spoken expression. Intense semantic interventions show promise for improving word retrieval in people with PPA. In addition, people with PPA may learn…

Purpose: This study was conducted to examine the comparative effectiveness of 2 different approaches, 1 domain-specific and the other domain-general, to language and attention rehabilitation in participants with stroke-induced aphasia. The domain-specific treatment consisted of language-specific attention treatment (L-SAT), and the domain-general…

Purpose: Two new treatments, 1 based on sentence to picture matching (SPM) and the other on object manipulation (OM), that train participants on the thematic roles of sentences using pictures or by manipulating objects were piloted. Method: Using a single-subject multiple-baseline design, sentence comprehension was trained on the affected sentence…

Background: Naming accuracy for nouns and verbs in aphasia can vary across different elicitation contexts, for example, simple picture naming, composite picture description, narratives, and conversation. For some people with aphasia, naming may be more accurate to simple pictures as opposed to naming in spontaneous, connected speech; for others,…