Category-specific treatment of a lexical-semantic deficit: A single case study of global aphasia

The aim of this study was to improve the comprehension of single items in a subject with global aphasia. Existing models of semantic organisation were used to inform and guide the treatment programme. Detailed pre-therapy testing suggested a severe comprehension deficit with an inability to obtain a precise semantic specification of the items, irrespective of modality of input. A category-specific hierarchical treatment programme including generic and specific details about items was implemented through various exercises and drills. Post-therapy testing revealed a significant improvement on treated and untreated items of treated categories but limited generalisation to items in untreated categories. Improvement in the subject's general semantic abilities was also documented following treatment. The results, which are shown to be a direct consequence of the intervention programme, lend support to the categorical and hierarchical view of the organisation of semantics and provide a basis for future rehabilitation studies in this area.

[1]  S. Byng,et al.  Assessing semantic comprehension: Methodological considerations, and a new clinical test , 1984 .

[2]  Marlene Behrmann,et al.  The rites of righting writing: Homophone remediation in acquired dysgraphia , 1987 .

[3]  Sally Byng,et al.  Sentence processing deficits: Theory and therapy , 1988 .

[4]  E. V. Jones,et al.  Building the foundations for sentence production in a non-fluent aphasic. , 1986, The British journal of disorders of communication.

[5]  Eve V. Clark,et al.  WHAT'S IN A WORD? ON THE CHILD'S ACQUISITION OF SEMANTICS IN HIS FIRST LANGUAGE , 1973 .

[6]  Mp. Departz.  Reeducation of a Deep Dyslexic Patient - Rationale of the Method and Results , 1986 .

[7]  T. Shallice.  Specialisation within the semantic system , 1988 .

[8]  Rita Sloan Berndt,et al.  Category-specific deficits in aphasia , 1988 .

[9]  Glyn W. Humphreys,et al.  Semantic systems or system? Neuropsychological evidence re-examined , 1988 .

[10]  Sally Byng,et al.  Aphasia Therapy Research: Methodological Requirements and Illustrative Results , 1986 .

[11]  D. Howard,et al.  Computer-generated phonemic cues: an effective aid for naming in aphasia. , 1987, The British journal of disorders of communication.

[12]  Lloyd M. Dunn.  Series of plates for the Peabody picture vocabulary test , 1959 .

[13]  F. Darley.  The efficacy of language rehabilitation in aphasia. , 1972, The Journal of speech and hearing disorders.

[14]  T Shallice,et al.  Semantic access dyslexia. , 1979, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[15]  H. Kucera,et al.  Computational analysis of present-day American English , 1967 .

[16]  E. Warrington,et al.  Categories of knowledge. Further fractionations and an attempted integration. , 1987, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[17]  E. Rosch.  Cognitive Representations of Semantic Categories. , 1975 .

[18]  Elizabeth K. Warrington,et al.  Neuropsychological studies of verbal semantic systems , 1981 .

[19]  T. Shallice.  From Neuropsychology to Mental Structure: Converging Operations: Specific Syndromes and Evidence from Normal Subjects , 1988 .

[20]  E. Warrington.  Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology the Selective Impairment of Semantic Memory the Selective Impairment of Semantic Memory , 2022 .

[21]  E. Warrington,et al.  CATEGORY SPECIFIC ACCESS DYSPHASIA , 1983 .

[22]  J. Marshall,et al.  Syntactic and semantic errors in paralexia , 1966 .

[23]  S. Black,et al.  Semantic encoding of pictures and words: Some neuropsychological observations , 1988 .

[24]  T. Shallice.  Impairments of semantic processing: multiple dissociations , 1987 .

[25]  Sally Byng,et al.  Computer assisted remediation of a homophone comprehension disorder in surface dyslexia , 1989 .

[26]  T. Shallice,et al.  Category specific semantic impairments , 1984 .