| Abstract: |
BACKGROUND: The use of constraint-induced treatment in aphasia therapy has yielded promising but mixed results. AIMS: We conducted a treatment study with an individual with chronic non-fluent aphasia. The goal of the treatment was to improve verb production in sentence and narrative contexts. METHODS and PROCEDURES: We administered a modified constraint-induced aphasia treatment in a single-participant design. Treatment emphasised the production of verbs within informative exchanges. Verb production in narratives was assessed before and after the treatment. OUTCOMES and RESULTS: Results demonstrated a significant increase in the number of verbs produced during narrative generation following treatment. Moreover, a positive change was perceived by naive listeners who rated the social-communicative impact of the participant's narratives. CONCLUSIONS: The increase in verb production seen in the post-treatment measures is attributed to a combination of the constraints imposed on sentence production during the treatment sessions, the informative nature of the treatment exchanges, and the relative intensity of the treatment schedule. |
