Articles can be long and confusing… See here for the key points from our papers!

 

Dosing of a Cued Picture Naming Treatment for Anomia

 

More speech therapy can help people with aphasia get better.  Speech therapy requires a lot of time. We looked at how to make speech therapy more effective, without making sessions longer. Our picture-naming therapy included 8 repetitions of 50 words (400 words total!). Most participants improved in word finding a lot! This means that completing our picture-naming study can be effective and improve word-finding!

Full article: Dosing of a Cued Picture Naming Treatment for Anomia

 

Use of fMRI in the Study of Chronic Aphasia Recovery after Therapy: A Case Study

 

A fMRI allows doctors and researchers to see what parts of the brain are turned “on” or turned “off”.  In this study, fMRI was used to investigate what parts of the brain react to different aphasia therapies. The study found that the brain was reacting more (which is good!) with more intense therapy in comparison to less speech therapy. This means that more intensive speech therapy may improve our brain connections more!

Full article: Use of fMRI in the Study of Chronic Aphasia Recovery After Therapy: A Case Study

 

The effects of emotional stimuli on Word retrieval in people with aphasia

 

Aphasia can make it hard to say the words you want to say. Speech-language therapists might ask you to name pictures when testing aphasia. This study found it is harder to say happy and sad words. Sad words were the most difficult to say. This means speech-language therapists need to consider emotion during testing and therapy!

Full article: The effects of emotional stimuli on Word retrieval in people with aphasia

 

Nonverbal Working Memory as a Predictor of Anomia Treatment Success

 

We wondered if memory and aphasia therapy were related. In this study, we found that aphasia therapy did not improve memory. However, people who had good memory did better in aphasia therapy.

Full article: Nonverbal Working Memory as a Predictor of Anomia Treatment Success

 

Using Word-Picture Verification to Inform Language Impairment Locus in Chronic Post-Stroke Aphasia

 

Speech-language therapists sometimes ask people with aphasia to match pictures to words. Matching pictures to words helps speech-language therapists figure out what is easy and what is hard for you. We found that matching pictures to words is easier if you can read and understand language well. We learned that matching pictures to words is a good way to test language abilities in aphasia!

Full article: Using Word-Picture Verification to Inform Language Impairment Locus in Chronic Post-Stroke Aphasia

 

A Scoring Review of the Relationship Between Nonlinguistic Cognitive Factors and Aphasia Treatment Response

 

Research has proven aphasia therapies that are specific and structured are effective. However, not all brains work the same, and not all people show improvements to treatments like these. We read lots of studies and checked if cognitive differences like memory, attention, and executive functioning were considered in choosing aphasia therapies.  We found that most studies do not look at this. We concluded that there needs to be more focus on giving people with aphasia treatment that is made for them.

 

Full article: A Scoping Review of the Relationship Between Nonlinguistic Cognitive Factors and Aphasia Treatment Response

Aerobic Exercise as an Adjuvent to Aphasia Therapy: Theory, Preliminary Findings, and Future Directions

 

We wanted to know if exercising before or after therapy helps people with aphasia understand or speak more easily. We assessed people’s speaking and understanding before and after they started exercising. Results showed that exercise may help with aphasia therapy, but there needs to be more studies done to prove it.

 

Full article: Aerobic Exercise as an Adjuvent to Aphasia Therapy- Theory, Preliminary Findings, and Future Directions

 

Establishing Severity Levels for Patient-Reported Measures of Functional Communication, Participation, and Perceived Cognitive Function For Adults with Acquired Cognitive and Language Disorders

 

This study created ways to rate how severe communication and thinking challenges are for adults with cognitive or language disorders. Researchers and caregivers worked together to decide on levels, like mild or severe, which helps doctors better understand and track these challenges.

 

Full Article: Establishing Severity Levels