The Science of Aphasia Rehabilitation

Chris Code, Donald Freed, Chris Code, Donald B Freed

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317625087
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book examines the rehabilitation of language disorders in adults, presenting new research, as well as expert insights and perspectives, into this area. The first chapter presents a study on personalised cueing to enhance word finding. Cynthia K. Thompson and her colleagues contribute a chapter describing The Northwestern Naming Battery and its use in examining for verb and noun deficits in stroke-induced and primary progressive aphasia. Heather Harris-Wright and Gilson J. Capilouto examine a multi-level approach to understanding the maintenance of global coherence in aphasia. Kathryn M. Yorkston and colleagues provide discussion on the training of healthcare professionals, and what speech and language pathology and medical education can learn from one another. Yorkston also presents a systematic review asking whether principles of motor learning can enhance retention and transfer of speech skills. Connie A. Tompkins present a single-participant experiment examining generalization of a novel treatment for coarse coding deficit in right hemisphere damage. Finally, Chris Code returns to the topic of apportioning time for aphasia treatment.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Aphasiology.

INTRODUCTION

The clinical scientist

Donald B. Freed¹ and Chris Code²

¹School of Psychology, Exeter University, Exeter, UK
²Department of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Studies, California State University, Fresno, USA

This special edition of Aphasiology is dedicated to the clinical scientist Dr. Bob Marshall, who has served this journal and the wider aphasiological community for many years. Bob has decided to step down as Aphasiology’s North American Editor, a post he has held since the origins of the journal in 1987. It is unusual for an individual to be an editor of a major professional journal for such a long time, but such dedication is typical of Bob. During his long and productive career he has been clinical scientist, writer, teacher, and mentor par excellence.

Bob’s first article was published in the Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders in 1970. In the intervening 42 years he has published over 120 peer-reviewed articles, 4 books, 18 book chapters, and 17 non-peer-reviewed articles. The breadth of these publications is remarkable. Their topics include almost every type of neurogenic speech and language disorder: cortical cluttering, all of the major aphasia subtypes, most of the dysarthrias, apraxia of speech, acquired stuttering, traumatic head injury, and others. They include review papers, case studies, detailed examinations of assessment procedures, and the development of original treatment techniques. A number of his articles are unique. For example, he published the first reported instance of isolated laryngeal apraxia. A classic case study, the paper described the patient’s puzzling speech errors, the trial and error process that led to the diagnosis, and the treatment of the condition with an electrolarynx.

The depth of Bob’s publications is also extraordinary. When something of interest comes his way, he investigates it carefully and in detail. For instance, for the past 21 years he has methodically researched a specific treatment procedure for anomia called personalised cueing. After first developing and documenting this procedure in a 1991 study, his research progressed systematically from the use of abstract stimuli that allowed precise measurement of the treatment procedure’s effects to the use of realistic stimuli typically used in clinical practice. This series of studies produced at least 10 peer-reviewed articles and an even greater number of national and international presentations. Remarkably, during these years of personalised cueing research, Bob maintained his diverse interest in other areas of study, and he continued to publish many articles on completely different topics.

Another of Bob’s major contributions is his long history of presentations and invited workshops. He has over 140 peer-reviewed local, national, and international presentations to his credit, most of which have been conducted at major conferences. The topics discussed have the same breadth and depth as his publications, covering nearly every aspect of neurogenic communication disorders. He has over 80 presentations and workshops in his CV, and they include talks given throughout the United States, Japan, Canada, Germany, Australia, the UK, and New Zealand. Bob is at his best when conducting one of these workshops. He is clear, well organised, detailed, and engaging.

Finally we have to mention Bob’s teaching and mentoring. There is a “Who’s Who” of leaders in neurogenic communication disorders who have acknowledged Bob’s invaluable contributions to their careers: Lee Ann Golper, Jack Thomas, Cynthia K. Thompson, Connie Tompkins, and Kathy Yorkston. All of these individuals did internships at the Portland, Oregon, Veterans Affairs Medical Center under Bob’s supervision during formative periods of their careers. Each of them has personally told us that Bob’s mentoring was an essential part of their career choices and of their current success as clinicians and researchers. These five outstanding individuals are just a few of the scores of students and beginning clinicians who have benefited significantly from Bob’s knowledge, patience, and advice.

We are honoured to bring together papers contributed to this special issue of Aphasiology by Bob’s colleagues, friends, and former students. First is a paper on personalised cueing to enhance word finding (Olsen, Freed, & Marshall, 2012). While Bob did contribute to this paper he did not know that it would appear in this special issue in his honour. Cynthia K. Thompson, another close colleague, and her colleagues contribute a paper describing The Northwestern Naming Battery and its use in examining for verb and noun deficits in stroke-induced and primary progressive aphasia (Thompson, Lukic, King, Mesulam, & Weintraub, 2012). Colleagues Heather Harris-Wright and Gilson J. Capilouto examine a multi-level approach to understanding maintenance of global coherence in aphasia (Harris-Wright & Capilouto, 2012). Kathryn M. Yorkston and colleagues provide discussion on the training of healthcare professionals, and what speech and language pathology and medical education can learn from one another (Burns, Baylor, Morris, McNally, & Yorkston, 2012). A systematic review asking whether principles of motor learning can enhance retention and transfer of speech skills is also presented by Kathryn Yorkston’s group (Bislick, Weir, Spencer, Kendall & Yorkston, 2012). Another range of close colleagues led by Connie A. Tompkins present a single-participant experiment examining generalisation of a novel treatment for coarse coding deficit in right hemisphere damage (Tompkins, Scharp, Meigh, Lehman Blake & Wambaugh, 2012). Finally, Code (2012) returns to a topic, apportioning time for aphasia, inspired by a paper Bob wrote in the first issue of Aphasiology, over 26 years ago.

Bob is not retiring completely, but he is taking a well-earned break from the task of journal editing, work in which he has been engaged for over 26 years. During this time he has introduced and encouraged young contributors to bring their work to the attention of their peers through publication, and he has carefully guided hundreds of studies, and authors, through the peer-reviewing and editorial process in a watchful and sensitive manner. We wish Bob all the best in his future endeavours, and we want to thank him particularly for his dedicated service to Aphasiology. He’s going to be missed around the virtual Aphasiology editing office, but he has agreed to remain on the editorial board, so he will always be close.

REFERENCES

Bislick, L. P., Weir, P. C., Spencer, K., Kendall, D., & Yorkston, K. M. (2012). Do principles of motor learning enhance retention and transfer of speech skills? A systematic review. Aphasiology, 26(5), 709–728.

Burns, M. I., Baylor, C. R., Morris, M., McNalley, T. E., & Yorkston, K. M. (2012). Training healthcare providers in patient-provider communication: What speech-language pathology and medical education can learn from one another. Aphasiology, 26(5), 673–688.

Code, C. (2012). Apportioning time for aphasia rehabilitation. Aphasiology, 26(5), 729–735.

Harris Wright, H., & Capilouto, G. J. (2012). Considering a multi-level approach to understanding maintenance of global coherence in adults with aphasia. Aphasiology, 26(5), 656–672.

Olsen, E., Freed, D., & Marshall, R. C. (2012). Generalisation of personalised cueing to enhance word finding in natural settings. Aphasiology, 26(5), 618–631.

Thompson, C. K., Lukic, S., King, M. C., Mesulam, M-M., & Weintraub, S. (2012). Verb and noun deficits in stroke-induced and primary progressive aphasia: The Northwestern Naming Battery. Aphasiology, 26(5), 632–655.

Tompkins, C. A., Scharp, V. L., Meigh, K., Lehman Blake, M., & Wambaugh, J. (2012). Generalisation of a novel, implicit treatment for coarse coding deficit in right hemisphere brain damage: A single-participant experiment. Aphasiology, 26(5), 689–708.

Generalisation of personalised cueing to enhance word finding in natural settings

Ericka Olsen¹, Donald B. Freed², and Robert C. Marshall³

¹Central California Ear Nose and Throat, Fresno, CA, USA
²Department of Communicative Disorders and Deaf Studies, California State
University, Fresno, Fresno, CA, USA
³University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

Background: Personalised cueing is a treatment method for naming deficits in patients with aphasia. As part of the treatment patients choose their own cues to help recall a target word. These cues usually include personally relevant semantic information, which is hypothesised to enhance long-term naming abilities. Previous research has shown that personalised cueing can improve long-term naming accuracy in persons with aphasia. However, no research has shown that personalised cueing carries over to improved naming in natural settings.

Aims: The study aimed to examine the long-term generalisation of improved word finding using the personalised cueing method.

Methods & Procedures: Three individuals participated in 12 training trials using the personalised cueing method; 40 unnamed stimulus items were chosen for each participant. Pre-training measures of the Sentence Production Task (SPT) and Message Exchange Task (MET) were administered for each participant. Of the 40 stimulus items, 20 were then trained using the personalised cueing method across 12 training sessions. Post-training measures of the SPT and MET were then collected, along with measures on a Caregiver Partner Rating scale to assess naming accuracy in natural settings. The 20 untrained stimulus items were also probed to assess generalisation to untrained stimuli.

Outcomes & Results: Two of the three participants showed improvement in naming trained items in natural settings, but little improvement was noted on the untrained stimulus items. Results for these patients were consistent with other studies on the personalised cueing method. The third participant demonstrated a slight increase in naming accuracy over time. Shortly after this study that participant was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

Conclusions: Results suggest that personalised cueing is an effective method of improving naming in certain individuals with aphasia. It also suggests that the effects of personalised cueing are maintained over time and are evident in natural settings.

Word retrieval is one of the most common difficulties experienced by individuals with ap...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Citation Information
• 1. Introduction: The clinical scientist
• 2. Generalisation of personalised cueing to enhance word finding in natural settings
• 3. Verb and noun deficits in stroke-induced and primary progressive aphasia: The Northwestern Naming Battery
• 4. Considering a multi-level approach to understanding maintenance of global coherence in adults with aphasia
• 5. Training healthcare providers in patient–provider communication: What speech-language pathology and medical education can learn from one another
• 6. Generalisation of a novel implicit treatment for coarse coding deficit in right hemisphere brain damage: A single-participant experiment
• 7. Do principles of motor learning enhance retention and transfer of speech skills? A systematic review
• 8. Apportioning time for aphasia rehabilitation
• Index