TRAINING IN THE USE OF WH-QUESTIONS AND PREPOSITIONS IN DIALOGS - A COMPARISON OF 2 DIFFERENT APPROACHES IN APHASIA THERAPY

In this language treatment experiment we compared a stimulation techni que and a linguistically oriented learning approach for the use of int errogative words and prepositions. These function words had to be used in a short dialogue text comprising a wh-question with an interrogati ve word and an elliptic answer with a temporal prepositional phrase. T he text was embedded in a short description of the situational context . Twelve chronic aphasic patients took part in this two-period cross-o ver treatment experiment-nine had Broca's aphasia, three Wernicke's ap hasia. They had a medium overall level of aphasic impairment as measur ed by the Aachen Aphasia Test. Nonparametric tests yielded significant ly larger direct effects for the linguistically oriented learning appr oach (L), but significantly larger after-effects for the stimulation a pproach (S). Thus, the S/L sequence was more efficacious. Transfer eff ects to non-trained spatial function words were also present, but to a lesser degree. Methods from criterion-referenced measurement were use d to assess treatment effects, both improvement and mastery, in indivi dual patients. Aphasics with additional speech apraxia showed deviatio ns from the overall improvement pattern.