A DOUBLE-BLIND, PLACEBO-CONTROLLED STUDY OF PHARMACOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL TREATMENT OF LEXICAL-SEMANTIC DEFICITS IN APHASIA

This investigation replicated and extended an earlier study of naming disorders (McNeil. et al. 1995) by administering a placebo and pharmac ological agents (d-amphetamine and selegiline) in the presence and abs ence of a behavioural intervention termed lexical-semantic activation inhibition therapy (L-SAIT) to examine their effects on naming perform ance in two adults with stroke-induced aphasia. Results revealed acqui sition and maintenance effects of L-SAIT on targeted lexical items, no effects of placebo or active pharmacological agents in the absence of L-SAIT, and no differential effects between placebo + L-SAIT and phar macological agents + L-SAIT. Thus, positive treatment effects were att ributed to L-SAIT. Generalization to untrained items within and across form class was not observed, nor was generalization to measures of in formativeness of connected speech. Subject 1 evidenced improvement on the Rapid Automatized Naming Test (Denckla and Rudel 1976).