Date Available

4-18-2014

Year of Publication

2014

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Document Type

Master's Thesis

College

Health Sciences

Department/School/Program

Communication Sciences & Disorders

First Advisor

Dr. Robert Marshall

Abstract

The goal of the present study was to examine changes in the speech and language performance of patients with chronic, non-fluent aphasia over the course of a three-hour group speech and language treatment session, a time allotment comparable to intensive therapy practices. Nine participants, (three groups of three), with chronic, non-fluent aphasia were seen for a single group therapy session three hours in length. Therapeutic activities were designed to be as similar as possible for each group of participants. Each participant was individually assessed before (time 1), during (time 2), and after (time 3) the group treatment session. Assessments included four verbal tests: function, naming, sentence completion, and repetition, similar to those used with the Porch Index of Communicative Ability (PICA; Porch, 1981). Results indicated that participants performed significantly poorer on two of the four verbal tests (naming and repetition), and on an overall measure of verbal communication on the Time 2 assessment as compared to the Time 1 assessment. Findings have clinical implications for selecting candidates for intensive language therapy regimes.

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