An investigation of aphasic naming error evolution following phonomotor treatment

Abstract

Background: Though treatments for anomia in aphasia typically use accuracy of trained and untrained targets to determine treatment efficacy, researchers have begun to employ error analyses in order to more closely delineate the mechanisms involved in anomia recovery.Aims: The aim of this study was to examine changes in naming errors of 24 individuals with aphasia after phonomotor treatment (14 new individuals and 10 individuals whose word retrieval error data were previously reported in a separate manuscript).Methods & Procedures: Twenty-four individuals with aphasia received phonomotor treatment. Confrontation naming was assessed pre-treatment, immediately post-treatment, and 3 months post-treatment. Responses were scored for accuracy and error type. Paired-samples t tests comparing pre-treatment versus immediately post-treatment and 3 months post-treatment accuracy and error-type proportions were conducted. Additionally, the role of language severity in error-type proportion shifts was examined through analyses of subgroups and correlational analyses between language measures and error-type change scores.Outcomes & Results: Trained and untrained naming accuracy improved significantly immediately post-treatment, and gains were maintained 3 months post-treatment. No significant changes in error-type proportions were noted; however, trends towards decreases in proportions of omissions were noted immediately post-treatment (trained items) and 3 months post-treatment (trained and untrained items). In a post hoc subgroup analysis, a significant decrease in the proportion of omissions on trained items was noted 3 months post-treatment for the subgroup of individuals with lower lexical retrieval ability.Conclusions: Results are indicative of a shift in linguistic processing in which the linguistic network was holistically altered as a result of phonomotor treatment.