The contrast between cueing and/or observation in therapy for verb retrieval in post-stroke aphasia

Background: Studies measuring treatment efficacy for post-stroke verb anomia are scarce. These studies mainly assessed the efficacy of three strategies: semantic, phonological and sensorimotor. Following these previous treatments, the performance of most participants improved on treated verbs, while improvement on untreated stimuli and tasks was inconsistent. Aims: This study aimed to measure the effectiveness of a semantic-phonological strategy and a sensorimotor strategy for verb anomia in post-stroke aphasia. Methods: A multiple baseline single-subject experimental study was conducted with two participants (9-37 years post-stroke). Four phases were completed: (1) background assessment, (2) baselines, (3) therapy, and (4) follow-up. Three equivalent lists of verbs were created for each participant and two of them were trained with a different strategy: action observation + semantic-phonological cues, action observation alone. The stimuli of the third list (control list) were not treated. Results: The semantic-phonological cueing strategy led to a significant improvement. No improvement was observed after action observation. No generalization to untreated verbs was found. Conclusions: Verb naming can be enhanced by semantic/phonological cueing. In addition, other studies (clinical, neuroimaging, etc.) are needed to document the effect of action observation for the treatment of verb anomia. Learning outcomes: The reader will be able to (1) describe semantic-phonological therapies used in post-stroke verb anomia, (2) describe sensorimotor therapies used in post-stroke verb anomia, and (3) identify factors contributing to the efficacy of therapies to improve action naming in aphasia. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.