Browsing by Subject "tehostettu puheenkuntoutus"

Objectives: Intensive language action therapy (ILAT/CILT) has been found to be effective in the treatment of aphasia, even in the chronic state of aphasia. It is based on three principles emphasising several components of therapy: massed practise, functional communicative contexts, and restriction to verbal output only. ILAT is typically practiced in group settings, but in this investigation it was performed on a single-participant design. Studies have shown that verbs and nouns can be separately impaired in aphasia, partly because of the concreteness effect: nouns are more imageable than verbs. The concreteness effect also explains that certain types of verbs are easier to produce than others (concrete versus more abstract verbs). The objective of this study was to measure the increase of concrete and more abstract verb production after the ILAT-intervention. In addition, there has been discussion about functional communication outcomes of aphasia therapy. Therefore, this study also takes into account the measurement of aphasic speaker's everyday communication using self-evaluation (Communicative Activity Log, CAL). Method: The participant of this study was a non-fluent speaker with Broca's aphasia. The quality and the amount of communication was measured two times before the treatment phase and two times after it. The treatment phase included intervention approximately four times per week for six weeks about 1,5 hours each time (30 hours in total). The changes in measured communication were evaluated with statistical tests for effect size. The functional communication was assessed with Communicative Activity Log (CAL). Results and conclusions: The results showed improvement in the production of concrete verbs. The production of abstract verbs did not increase significantly. Functional-communication measure did not demonstrate increase in communication amount and quality right after the therapy, but in the follow-up it did increase. Intensive language action method was found to be an effective treatment also as an individual therapy.