Promoting generalisation of naming therapy to connected speech through reducing naming speed

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Promoting generalisation of naming therapy to connected speech through reducing naming speed Christina Sotiropoulou1*, Paul Conroy1 and Matthew Lambon Ralph1 1 University of Manchester, Neuroscience and Aphasia Research Unit, United Kingdom Word-retrieval difficulties commonly occur in aphasia and are considered one of the most pervasive symptoms affecting everyday communication. While picture naming tasks have typically been used for assessing and treating word finding problems in clinical practice, there is a dearth of studies investigating the relationship between confrontation naming and connected speech tasks. This study investigated whether a newly-developed treatment targeting both speed and accuracy (‘repeated increasingly speeded presentation’ - RISP) in picture naming would be more effective for improving the use of the treated names in connected speech, than a standard therapy (‘standard presentation’ - SP) which targeted accuracy alone. Twenty participants with aphasia of varying degrees of severity and subtype took part in twelve therapy sessions over six weeks. In the baseline and post-treatment assessments (four and two sessions respectively), participants were asked to complete a composite picture description task and a picture naming task, the items of which were part of the composite pictures and constituted therapy targets. For the dependent variables of speed and accuracy in picture naming, we found that, compared to the standard therapy, RISP was significantly more effective in improving picture naming accuracy and in maintaining the reduced RTs in the long term. While this was expected for speed (i.e. quicker RTs because of the speed manipulation), it was not expected for accuracy (i.e. no speed-accuracy trade-off). As for the picture description task, the ‘carry over’ of the therapy items to connected speech was increased for all items relative to the baseline. RISP therapy, however, in comparison to the SP, led to significantly higher generalisation of targeted items to connected speech, with long term effects. This could be due to (a) the increased benefit of RISP therapy on picture naming accuracy and picture naming speed, (b) the greater cognitive demand of the RISP task, because RISP promoted greater sustained attention, vigilance and motivation. These findings suggest that a more demanding single-word therapy can improve chronic stroke participants’ retrieval of isolated words and can promote strong generalisation effects to the more linguistically and cognitively demanding task of producing connected speech. Keywords: speed of naming, word finding difficulties, Aphasia, generalisation, Connected speech, speed accuracy trade-off, naming therapy Conference: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting, Llandudno, United Kingdom, 16 Oct - 18 Oct, 2016. Presentation Type: Platform Sessions Topic: Academy of Aphasia Citation: Sotiropoulou C, Conroy P and Lambon Ralph M (2016). Promoting generalisation of naming therapy to connected speech through reducing naming speed. Front. Psychol. Conference Abstract: 54th Annual Academy of Aphasia Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fpsyg.2016.68.00057 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 29 Apr 2016; Published Online: 15 Aug 2016. * Correspondence: Miss. Christina Sotiropoulou, University of Manchester, Neuroscience and Aphasia Research Unit, Manchester, United Kingdom, christinsot@yahoo.gr Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Christina Sotiropoulou Paul Conroy Matthew Lambon Ralph Google Christina Sotiropoulou Paul Conroy Matthew Lambon Ralph Google Scholar Christina Sotiropoulou Paul Conroy Matthew Lambon Ralph PubMed Christina Sotiropoulou Paul Conroy Matthew Lambon Ralph Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.