Phonological naming treatment for a Koreanspeaking patient with severe fluent aphasia

Abstract

Whereas much recent research has focused on developing and examining the effects of neuropsychological model-based naming treatments for aphasic word-finding difficulties, few of these studies have involved patients with severe fluent aphasia, particularly those with a Wernicke's aphasia profile. Due to some discrepancies in the existing literature, further investigation of generalization effects associated with these model-based treatments, particularly those that are phonologically-based, is also needed. Accordingly, this study examined the effects of a phonologically-based naming treatment (applied in the context of a single-subject, A-B-A design) on the spoken naming and reading aloud abilities of T-JK, a Korean-speaking patient with Wernicke's aphasia. More specifically, the study explored if the treatment would improve his spoken naming and reading aloud of trained as well as untrained words, and additionally if it would enhance his performance of untrained language tasks. The results indicated that the phonologically-based treatment incorporating auditory and visual cues appeared to facilitate T-JK's access to phonological representations, and thus improved his spoken naming and reading aloud abilities. Treatment effects were supported by improvements in both spoken naming and reading aloud of trained and untrained words. The current findings add to a growing literature documenting the effectiveness of phonological, model-based treatment approaches for remediating word-finding deficits in aphasia, and extend this literature by illustrating the potential of these treatments for patients with severe fluent aphasia profiles. Hypotheses regarding treatment and generalization effects are discussed.