Persian Verb and Sentence Production Protocol (PVSP) and its efficacy on Persian-speaking agrammatic non-fluent persons with aphasia

ABSTRACT

Background: The semantic/syntactic representation of the verb is directly correspondent with the information required for generating well-constructed messages. Although various verb and sentence impairment therapies for persons with aphasia (PWA) are presented, there has been no published study of Persian verb treatment protocol for linguistic and cross-linguistic purposes.

Aims: This study was aimed at introducing a verb treatment protocol founded upon the Persian syntax, teaching to link the key thematic information of verbs, and targeting treatment at the word and sentence level.

Methods & Procedures: A single-subject study with multiple baselines design across participants was conducted. The efficacy of Persian Verb and Sentence Production Protocol (PVSP) on three agrammatic non-fluent patients was examined. Verb production skills at the word and sentence level were examined. The Mean Sentence Length (MSL) and sentence production across different tasks were measured at baseline and daily treatment probes.

Outcome and Results: Three participants notably improved in verb percent production at the word level in experimental items (from 3.3% to 88% for participant 1, from 1.17% to 27.6% for participant 2 and from 3.75% to 58.6% for participant 3). Generalisation to control items were observed (from 10% to 81.2% for participant 1, from 24.9% to 52.98% for participant 2, from 19.7% to 60.89% for participant 3). All participants also enhanced in verb percent production at the sentence level in experimental items (from 13.3% to 67% for participant 1, from 16.6% to 40% for participant 2, and from 5.7% to 55% for participant 3). Generalisation to control items was noted (from 20% to 57% for participant 1, from 23.3% to 43.5% for participant 2, from 5% to 61% for participant 3). The results of the maintenance and follow-up phases were subsequently remarkable. Pre-post measures of MSL in connected speech (free speech) were improved outstandingly (from 1 to 4.3 for participant 1, from 3.5 to 8 for participant 2, from 0 to 5.2 for participant 3).

Conclusions: PVSP seems to be beneficial to various degrees for Persian-speaking agrammatic non-fluent patients, enhancing their verb retrieval and sentence making skills.

KEYWORDS:

• Aphasia
• verb production
• Persian treatment protocol
• agrammatism

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the participants, the raters, the members of the expert panel, and Ms. Azizi, Mr. Hosseini Farzad, Ms. Rastegarian Zadeh, and Mr. Rezania. This paper is extracted from an MSc dissertation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.