The contrast between cueing and/or observation in therapy for verb retrieval in post-stroke aphasia.

Abstract:

<p><b>BACKGROUND: </b>Studies measuring treatment efficacy for post-stroke verb anomia are scarce. These studies mainly assessed the efficacy of three strategies: semantic, phonological and sensorimotor. Following these previous treatments, the performance of most participants improved on treated verbs, while improvement on untreated stimuli and tasks was inconsistent.</p><p><b>AIMS: </b>This study aimed to measure the effectiveness of a semantic-phonological strategy and a sensorimotor strategy for verb anomia in post-stroke aphasia.</p><p><b>METHODS: </b>A multiple baseline single-subject experimental study was conducted with two participants (9-37 years post-stroke). Four phases were completed: (1) background assessment, (2) baselines, (3) therapy, and (4) follow-up. Three equivalent lists of verbs were created for each participant and two of them were trained with a different strategy: action observation+semantic-phonological cues, action observation alone. The stimuli of the third list (control list) were not treated.</p><p><b>RESULTS: </b>The semantic-phonological cueing strategy led to a significant improvement. No improvement was observed after action observation. No generalization to untreated verbs was found.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS: </b>Verb naming can be enhanced by semantic/phonological cueing. In addition, other studies (clinical, neuroimaging, etc.) are needed to document the effect of action observation for the treatment of verb anomia.</p><p><b>LEARNING OUTCOMES: </b>The reader will be able to (1) describe semantic-phonological therapies used in post-stroke verb anomia, (2) describe sensorimotor therapies used in post-stroke verb anomia, and (3) identify factors contributing to the efficacy of therapies to improve action naming in aphasia.</p>