The Efficacy of Structural Priming in the Production of Sentences with Prepositions in Persian Patients with Poststroke Aphasia

Abstract

Introduction: Problems with the production of sentences with prepositions are one of the most common language problems in people with aphasia (PWA). Structural priming (SP) is one of the theory-based therapeutic approaches to improve these deficits. Although several studies have been conducted on the sentence construction problems of PWA, there is no study on the SP protocol for the production of sentences with Persian prepositions. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of SP in the production of these sentences among Persian-speaking PWA. Methods: This study, with a single-subject ABA design, evaluated the efficacy of SP in the production of trained and untrained sentences containing Persian prepositions in four aphasic individuals with agrammatism and investigated the maintenance effects at 4 weeks post-training. Results: Two subjects (A.G. and M.S.) showed notable changes in the production of trained sentences with Persian prepositions (50% to 91.67% for A.G. and 0% to 66.67% for M.S.). This significant improvement was generalized to sentences with untrained prepositions (50% to 91.67% for A.G. and 0% to 83.33% for M.S.). The treatment effects were also maintained in the 4-week follow-up (d2 = 10.3 for A.G. and d2 = 19.06 for M.S.). However, the other two participants only showed a slight increase in these variables after treatment. Conclusion: The findings of the present study revealed that SP for sentences with prepositions could be useful to varying degrees for Persian-speaking PWA with agrammatism and lead to improved language skills in producing these sentences. Overall, individuals with better language skills and cognitive status in early assessments showed better treatment outcomes than others.