Balancing Effortful and Errorless Learning in Naming Treatment for Aphasia

Aphasia is a language disorder caused by stroke and other acquired brain injuries that affects over two million people in the United States and which interferes with life participation and quality of life. Anomia (i.e., word- finding difficulty) is a primary frustration for people with aphasia. Picture-based naming treatments for anomia are widely used in aphasia rehabilitation, but current treatment approaches do not address the long-term retention of naming abilities and do not focus on using these naming abilities in daily life. The current research aims to evaluate novel anomia treatment approaches to improve long-term retention and generalization to everyday life.This study is one of two that are part of a larger grant. This record is for sub-study 1, which will adaptively balance effort and accuracy using speeded naming deadlines.

Inclusion Criteria:Existing diagnosis of chronic (>6 months) aphasia subsequent to left hemisphere stroke.Impaired performance on 2/8 sections of the Comprehensive Aphasia Test.Exclusion Criteria:History of other acquired or progressive neurological disease.Significant language comprehension impairments (per performance on the CAT - individuals will be excluded if their spoken language comprehension mean modality T- score on the CAT falls below 40).Unmanaged drug / alcohol dependence.Severe diagnosed mood or behavioral disorders that require specialize mental health interventions.