Active treatments for aprosodia secondary to right hemisphere stroke.
This study investigates the effects of two mechanism-based treatments for expressive aprosodia. Three participants, two women and one man, had a right hemisphere cerebral infarction resulting in affective aprosodia with greater expressive than receptive deficits. Trained raters determined presence of aprosodia by judging participants' performance on two emotional communication batteries. A single-subject design with replication across three participants was employed. Sentence production with the use of treated and nontreated emotions was measured during baseline and treatment phases. Sentences were scored for accuracy by a trained rater blind to time of testing and analyzed visually and statistically. Effect sizes calculated on the resulting data for each participant and treatment confirmed modest to substantial treatment effects for both treatments in all three participants. Because of a relative paucity of treatment studies investigating expressive aprosodia, these data are among the first to suggest that aprosodia may be amenable to behavioral treatments.
Leon
Susan A
SA
Department of Veterans Affairs Rehabilitation Research and Development Brain Rehabilitation Research Center, Gainesville, FL 32608, USA. leon@ufl.edu
Rosenbek
John C
JC
Crucian
Gregory P
GP
Hieber
Bethany
B
Holiway
Beth
B
Rodriguez
Amy D
AD
Ketterson
Timothy U
TU
Ciampitti
Maribel Z
MZ
Freshwater
Shawna
S
Heilman
Kenneth
K
Gonzalez-Rothi
Leslie
L
D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D020521:Stroke / Q000150:complications*