Rehabilitation for pure alexia: Efficacy of therapy and implications for models of normal word recognition

Abstract

Abstract In an attempt to remediate the deficit in letter processing thought to underlie pure alexia or letter-by-letter reading, a therapy programme was implemented with SI, a 46 year-old woman with pure alexia following a posterior cerebral artery infarction. Prior to the intervention programme, SI's reading and letter processing abilities were characterised in detail, and baseline measurements were taken to rule out spontaneous recovery or fluctuations in her performance. A nine-week, intensive therapy programme was designed to alter SI's report of single letters as a function of serial position in a string from the observed linear function to a more normal M-shaped curve. This involved training SI to apprehend and report the identity of the letter in the final position of a string as string length was increased and exposure duration was decreased. Whereas SI's ability to recognise the final letter improved significantly on post-therapy measures, there was no significant transfer to her word reading pe...