ABSTRACT

Evidence of generalization to connected speech following lexical retrieval treatment in Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) is scarce. Consequently, this study systematically investigated changes in verb phrase production following lexical retrieval treatment in a series of single case experimental design studies. Four individuals with PPA (three semantic- and one logopenic variant PPA) who had previously demonstrated that they could integrate verbs and nouns into sentence structures in a cueing paradigm, undertook a sequence of verb and noun lexical retrieval treatments using Repetition and Reading in the Presence of a Picture. Production of treated nouns- and/or verbs-in-isolation significantly improved following treatment for three of the four participants. Verb phrase production did not improve for one of these participants (logopenic PPA), perhaps due to the relatively small treatment dose. Two participants (semantic variant PPA) did, however, demonstrate across-level generalization, with improvement in treated verbs and using those verbs in (untreated) verb phrases. Their verb phrase production improved most after lexical retrieval treatment for both nouns and verbs, suggesting this combined approach may benefit across-level generalization for some individuals in clinical practice.

摘要

在原发性进行性失语症 (PPA) 中进行词汇检索治疗后，泛化到连接语音的证据很少。因此，本研究在一系列单例实验设计研究中系统地调查了词汇检索处理后动词短语产生的变化。四名 PPA 患者（三个语义变体和一个对数开放变体 PPA）之前已经证明他们可以在提示范式中将动词和名词整合到句子结构中，他们使用 Repetition and Reading in the Presence 进行了一系列动词和名词词汇检索治疗的图片。在对四名参与者中的三名进行治疗后，单独处理的名词和/或动词的产生显着改善。其中一名参与者的动词短语生产没有改善（对数开放 PPA），也许是由于治疗剂量相对较小。然而，两名参与者（语义变体 PPA）确实展示了跨级别的泛化，改进了处理的动词并在（未处理的）动词短语中使用了这些动词。在对名词和动词进行词汇检索处理后，他们的动词短语生成改善最大，这表明这种组合方法可能有利于临床实践中某些个体的跨层次概括。