Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA) treatment in L1 and L2 in bilingual aphasia: Effects of cognitive and language factors

ABSTRACT

Background

Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA) treatment has been proven to be effective in alleviating word finding difficulties in individuals with aphasia. However, there is no consensus on the impact of SFA on naming abilities and general language skills in bilingual persons with aphasia (BiPWAs), nor on factors that determine the success of the SFA treatment.

Aims

This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of SFA treatment in a group of L1-Russian – L2-Hebrew chronic stage BiPWAs and to evaluate the contribution of background factors, language and cognitive measures on the treatment success.

Methods & Procedures

The current study included two groups of BiPWAs. In the experimental group (n=10), six individuals received SFA therapy in both languages and four individuals in L2. The delayed-treatment group (n=10) did not receive therapy and served as a control group. All BiPWAs completed the Bilingual Aphasia Test (BAT) in both languages, as well as a battery of 10 cognitive tests and linguistic background questionnaires.

Outcome & Results

The results indicated a direct effect of SFA treatment on naming as well as within-language generalization and cross-language transfer. Importantly, we found significant improvements of general language skills in the treated and untreated languages in BiPWAs who received SFA treatment, while no such improvement was observed in the control group. Non-verbal inhibition and verbal working memory in L1-Russian predicted success of SFA treatment in BiPWAs.

Conclusions

SFA therapy has positive effects on naming ability of BiPWAs. In addition, SFA therapy affects general language skills in BiPWAs. Yet, within-language generalization, cross-linguistic transfer, and maintenance of the treatment results vary across individuals. The success of SFA treatment in BiPWAs is predicted by cognitive functions rather than background factors of bilingualism.

KEY WORDS:

• Bilingual aphasia
• SFA treatment
• within-language generalization
• cross-linguistic transfer
• cognitive factors

Acknowledgments

We thank our participants and their families for taking the time to participate in our study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Information

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/02687038.2023.2226359

Notes

¹ We use the term SFA in this study following the studies by Kiran and colleagues (e.g., Edmonds & Kiran, 2006; Kiran & Roberts, 2010). However, it should be kept in mind that that SFA treatment is used as an umbrella term for (a) the original SFA treatment as described in studies by Ylvisaker and colleagues (e.g., Haarbauer-Krupa et al., 1985) in which participants are required to analyze a concept and to attempt to generate its semantic features and (b) variants of the original SFA treatment in which participants are asked to select semantic features from distracters, to orally read the names of semantic features provides by the experimenter, or to verify that a semantic feature is related to a concept (see Boyle (2010) for a detailed discussion on the SFA terminology).

² It should be noted that due to the small group size, we decided to consider 1-2% change as a stable result.