Communicative speech therapy in aphasia: What does it mean, can it be effective and how should it be done?

Abstract

During the past decade interest in spontaneous speech and functional communication of aphasic patients has clearly increased. This growing interest is quite appropriate, as disorders in spontaneous speech and the resulting problems in functional communication are not only the most apparent, but also the most distressing, phenomena in aphasia. Hence, improvement in spontaneous speech and functional communication should be considered to be the most fundamental goal in therapy (Prins 1987).