American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology Vol.20 131-145 May 2011. doi:10.1044/1058-0360(2011/10-0036)
© American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrowCustom Print
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow My Folders
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Edmonds, L. A.
Right arrow Articles by Babb, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Edmonds, L. A.
Right arrow Articles by Babb, M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Delicious   Add to Digg   Add to Facebook   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Research Article

Effect of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment in Moderate-to-Severe Aphasia

Lisa A. Edmondsa
Michelle Babba
a The University of Florida, Gainesville

Correspondence to Lisa A. Edmonds: edmonds{at}ufl.edu

Purpose: This Phase II treatment study examined the effect of Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) on individuals with moderate-to-severe aphasia. Research questions addressed (a) pre- to posttreatment changes and pretreatment to treatment phase changes on probe sentences containing trained verbs (e.g., "The carpenter is measuring the stairs") and semantically related untrained verbs (e.g., "The nurse is weighing the baby"); (b) lexical retrieval changes in single-word naming, sentence, and discourse measures; (c) functional communication by way of proxy and participant report; and (d) error evolution.

Method: A multiple-baseline approach across participants was used. Effect sizes were calculated for pre- and posttreatment and maintenance probe responses. A C statistic was used to determine changes from the baseline to treatment phases.

Results: One participant exhibited improvement on all generalization measures, whereas the other participant exhibited more limited generalization. Both participants showed improvement on the functional communication measure.

Conclusions: As predicted, the participants did not show the same extent of improvement that was observed in participants with more moderate aphasia (Edmonds, Nadeu, & Kiran, 2009). Nonetheless, the findings suggest that VNeST may be appropriate for persons with moderate-to-severe aphasia, especially with a small adaptation to the treatment protocol that will be retained for future iterations of VNeST.

Key Words: aphasia, verbs, treatment, VNeST, sentences


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Delicious Delicious   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Facebook Facebook   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?