How Conversational Therapy influences language recovery in chronic non-fluent aphasia

Abstract

The study aimed to determine the efficacy of a Conversational Therapy approach in the treatment of chronic patients with moderately severe non-fluent aphasia. Eight patients completed a six week intensive language training. Every two weeks, each patient received rehabilitation using a different videoclip depicting everyday life. To elicit verbal communication, patients were required to observe each videoclip and to converse about it with the help of an experienced clinician. To measure any significant improvement in speech production all patients were tested before and after treatment. A significant increase in their ability to produce correct informative words (C-Units), verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, as well as closed-class words (pronouns, articles and conjunctions) and well-formed sentences was found after therapy. Such improvement persisted at one week and one month after the end of the treatment. These results suggest that conversational therapy, applied through intensive language training, has a significant efficacy in the recovery of verbal communication in chronic non-fluent aphasic individuals. This approach should be considered for patients with moderately severe non-fluent aphasia, as it enhances not only the ability to use informative language but also its correct use in daily living.

Keywords:

• Aphasia
• Speech rehabilitation
• Conversation
• Pragmatics
• Language