COMPARISON OF LANGUAGE RECOVERY IN REHABILITATED AND MATCHED, NON-REHABILITATED APHASIC PATIENTS

We have assessed 26 aphasic patients, matched in pairs as closely as p ossible for personal data (age, sex, education), neurological damage s uffered (nature, site and size of lesions) and characteristics of ling uistic impairments (type of aphasic syndrome and severity of aphasia). These patients were therefore distinguishable only by the presence (n =13) or absence (n=13) of structured, systematic language therapy. The assignment to one group or the other was not random; rather, the pati ents who constitute the non-rehabilitated group could not, for logisti c and/or familial reasons, attend language therapy sessions. Our findi ngs confirm the effectiveness of language rehabilitation in aphasic di sorders: at the end of 6 months of therapy the number of patients who met our criterion for improvement was significantly higher in the trea ted group in the expressive language modality. The rehabilitated and n on-rehabilitated groups did not differ significantly at 4 months post- onset, while they did differ significantly at 7 months post-onset; thi s shows that the duration of treatment seems to be a determining facto r in the effectiveness of language rehabilitation.