| Abstract: |
We have assessed 26 aphasic patients (aged 59-76 yrs), matched in pairs for personal data (age, sex, education), neurological damage suffered (nature, site, and size of lesions) and characteristics of linguistic impairments (type of aphasic syndrome and severity of aphasia). Half the Ss were given structured, systematic language therapy, and half were not. Findings confirm the effectiveness of language rehabilitation in aphasic disorders: at the end of 6 mo of therapy the number of patients who met criterion for improvement was significantly higher in the treated group in the expressive language modality. The rehabilitated and non-rehabilitated groups did not differ significantly at 4 months post-onset, while they did differ significantly at 7 months post-onset; this shows that the duration of treatment seems to be a determining factor in the effectiveness of language rehabilitation. |
