The Behavioral and Cognitive Response of Brain-Damaged Patients to Therapist Instructional Style

Abstract

Two instructional styles, one task-oriented and one patient-oriented, were investigated for their effect on the nonverbal behavior and immediate cognitive performance of patients with brain damage. A repeated measures design was used to address the hypotheses that the patient-oriented style relative to the task-oriented style would create greater patient nonverbal positivity and self-directiveness and result in better patient performance on a block design task. Twenty-eight patients received two instructional periods from one of seven therapists who used the same style or alternate styles during the two periods. As predicted, during the patient-oriented style of instruction the patient displayed more nonverbal positivity and self-directiveness than during the task-oriented style. On the other hand, the task-oriented style during the first instructional period led to higher scores on the subsequent block design task while the patient-oriented style during the second period led to higher scores.