| Abstract: |
Treatments for agrammatic production generally target sentence forms, inflectional morphology, verb retrieval, thematic roles, or underlying grammatical forms. Reviews of these and related methods suggest that they address Garrett's functional and positional levels of sentence processing. The study aimed to determine whether functional and positional-level syntactic training applied in a context requiring structuring of message-level representations would improve expressive syntax in a 42-yr-old male patient with agrammatism. A 10-week programme was divided into two 5-week phases requiring story retelling of three fables in each phase with critical oral and written feedback. Story retellings were analysed along three dimensions: grammaticality, complexity, and content. The programme was evaluated using a multiple-baseline across behaviours single-subject design. Overall, this treatment programme appeared to produce highly beneficial outcomes with regard to improved expressive syntax. Substantial generalisation of treatment effects was observed in post-treatment testing, while long-term maintenance of the gains achieved in treatment was observed. The story-retelling procedure, with oral and written feedback, stimulated and improved the participant's expressive syntax. |
