The modular treatment of agrammatism

Abstract

Cognitive, or more specifically, psycholinguistic models of sentence processing disorders in agrammatism attempt to specify what types of mental computations (we call them linguistic skills) are affected, at what level of the model, and by what mechanism (e.g. retrieval failure, knowledge loss, capacity limitation). We outline a new, “modular treatments” approach to the rehabilitation of aphasia, using agrammatism as an example. This approach draws from the model-driven analysis an empirically and theoretically defensible enumeration of linguistic skills which are vulnerable to disruption in agrammatism. Specific interventions target each of the vulnerable skills, using designs that aim towards maximal generality in the affected population and that can be standardised for use in the clinic. Such targeted interventions are the “modules” of a complete rehabilitation programme. The clinician chooses which to administer and on what schedule, on a case-by-case basis.