MAPPING THERAPY - A TREATMENT PROGRAM FOR AGRAMMATISM

Agrammatic aphasics demonstrate sensitivity to syntactic structure alt hough they generally fail to make adequate use of structural informati on in producing and comprehending sentences. Under the 'mapping hypoth esis' (cf. Schwartz et al. 1987), the agrammatic performance pattern i s taken to reflect impaired mapping between grammatical constituents ( subject, object) and thematic roles (agent, theme). We describe a trea tment programme ('mapping therapy') directed at the remediation of map ping operations, and report results of a study designed to assess the effects of this intervention on comprehension and production. Eight ch ronic non-fluent aphasics were trained to identify the verb, agent, an d patient/theme in sentences presented in a combined written-spoken fo rmat. Three types of sentences were used: active transitives with acti on verbs (Type A); active transitives with experiential verbs (Type B) , and non-canonical sentence types (e.g. passives) with action verbs ( Type C). The first phase of training utilized Type A sentences, the se cond Type B, the third Type C. Generalization to the untrained sentenc e types was tested by means of multiple-baseline/generalization probes . Generalization to standard comprehension and production tasks was as sessed through a comprehensive Language Assessment Battery. Acquisitio n and generalization profiles differed across subjects. However, follo wing training most patients showed improved scores on predicted measur es of sentence production, and two patients also showed improvement on syntactic comprehension tests. The best outcomes were seen in patient s with relatively pure agrammatism. Those with more severe and more co mplicated impairments had poorer outcomes, in part, we believe, becaus e of the resource demands of this particular training task.