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Intensive Language Action Therapy (ILAT) is a short-term aphasia therapy that emphasises massed-practise of language, where communication is framed through language action games that approximate everyday interactions. Despite increasing interest in ILAT, a comprehensive description of its methods has thus far been missing. Furthermore due to inconsistent results, further exploration of cortical reorganisation of language functions following ILAT is warranted. The underlying principles and practical features of ILAT methods and of language-action games are fully described, including the structure and materials for two specific games. 14 English speaking patients with chronic aphasia underwent two weeks of ILAT utilising the methods outlined. Pre and post measures of language performance were collected through standardised clinical assessments, along with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans from a subset of 8 patients. Accuracy and response times for speech output and comprehension during language-action games were also recorded to measure success during the therapy interval. Data analysis showed significant improvements in clinical assessments of naming and comprehension, but not in auditory or syntactic processing tasks. Significant increases were also seen in patients’ self-ratings of quality of communication following therapy. Video and voice recordings during therapy sessions demonstrated significantly faster response times in production and comprehension of language, alongside an increase in the complexity of patients’ spoken output. Cortical activation was recorded whilst patients heard low-level noise, sentences containing ambiguous words and low-ambiguity sentences. Although the results showed no changes in cortical activation in the group of patients whilst processing low-level noise or low ambiguity sentences, increases in language-induced activation were seen in single-subject analyses in both the left and right hemispheres. Furthermore the group of patients recruited the right hemisphere significantly more than the left hemisphere following ILAT when processing complex sentences containing ambiguous words. iii Clinical assessments and measures of everyday communication showed undergoing two weeks of ILAT significantly improved speech output and comprehension in patients with chronic aphasia. Gains made in communicative performance during therapy highlight the importance of recording therapy sessions for additional assessment of therapy efficacy. Although conclusions regarding cortical reorganisation are not entirely clear, they indicate the important role of the right hemisphere in reorganisation of language after stroke.

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Constraint-Induced Aphasia Therapy (CIAT) är en gruppbehandling för personer med afasi. Tidigare forskning kring CIAT har ansetts otillräcklig gällande dess långsiktiga effekt, dess effekt vid lindrig afasi och dess effekt på kommunikativ delaktighet. Föreliggande studie är en multipel fallstudie som syftar till att undersöka CIAT:s kort- och långsiktiga effekt på språk och kommunikation vid lindrig afasi. Fyra personer med kronisk afasi deltog i CIAT under två veckor. Språkfunktioner och funktionell kommunikation bedömdes före behandling (T1), efter behandling (T2) och vid uppföljning efter 3 månader (T3). Bedömningarna kompletterades av intervjuer med deltagarna och deras närstående. Vid T2 visade samtliga behandlingsdeltagare övervägande förbättrade språkliga funktioner. Vidare skattade 4/4 deltagare och samtliga närstående en förbättring av funktionell kommunikation. Vid T3 var förbättringen övervägande stabil. Skillnader i poängförbättring mellan bedömningarna antydde en behandlingseffekt, vilket stöddes av analys med teckentest. Resultat från intervjuer gav stöd för de förbättrade resultaten och kan anses öka den ekologiska validiteten. Resultaten tyder på att CIAT kan ha en kort- och långsiktig effekt på språk och kommunikation vid lindrig grad av afasi. Föreliggande studie indikerar därmed att CIAT kan vara gynnsamt för denna patientgrupp. Vidare analys krävs dock för att utesluta en effekt av upprepad testning. Med hänsyn till antalet personer som drabbas av afasi varje år och de betydande psykosociala konsekvenser afasi kan innebära bör framtida forskning utreda ytterligare hur behandling kan förbättra såväl språkliga funktioner som kommunikativ delaktighet i vardagen. / Constraint-Induced Aphasia Therapy (CIAT) is a group therapy for people with aphasia. The therapy’s effectiveness, its effect in milder aphasia and its long-term effect has not been thoroughly investigated in previous studies. This multiple case study aims to assess short- and long-term effect of CIAT on language functions and functional communication in mild aphasia. Four people with chronic aphasia received CIAT over two weeks. Language functions and functional communication was assessed prior therapy (T1), after therapy (T2) and at a 3 month follow-up (T3). In addition to assessments, interviews with participants and their family members were conducted. At T2 all participants showed mainly improved language functions. In addition, 4/4 participants and all family members rated an improvement of functional communication. Results were mainly stable at T3. Differences in improvement when comparing assessments indicated a treatment effect, which was supported by analysis with a sign test. Results from interviews supported the improved results on language tests and could be regarded as increasing the ecological validity. Results indicate a positive and lasting effect on language and communication in milder aphasia. The present study thus suggests that CIAT could be beneficial to this patient group. However, further analyses are required to rule out the possibility of a practice effect. Considering the number of people with aphasia and the psychosocial impact of aphasia, future research should further investigate how therapy could improve linguistic ability as well as communicative participation.

Abstract Background: Individuals with nonfluent aphasia may have significant difficulties with functional spoken communication tasks in their daily life. Aphasia treatment held in a group setting may provide an enriched communicative context wherein the requirements of spoken language are similar to those within functional day-to-day communicative situations. Thus engaging in a spoken language activity in a group setting may directly target generalization of trained skills to those required in real-life, social communication situations. The present study is concerned with an aphasia group treatment that requires focused practice of spoken language during a social-functional communication task. Intensive Language Action Therapy (ILAT) has demonstrated positive communication outcomes in some individuals with chronic aphasia. However, it remains to be seen which clinical measures best index outcomes for ILAT. The purpose of the current study was to determine the effectiveness of ILAT in individuals with nonfluent aphasia by exploring multiple, potential ILAT outcomes. The outcomes included change in performance on assessments of directly trained spoken social-functional communication abilities (proximal outcomes), untrained social-functional communication abilities and language abilities (primary outcomes), and cognitive-communication abilities (secondary outcome). Additionally, the project aimed to explore the participants' perceptions of ILAT (secondary outcome). Methods and Procedures: ILAT was implemented with four individuals with nonfluent aphasia, using a single-subject multiple baseline design. The treatment was conducted daily for 10 consecutive week days, totaling 25 hours of treatment. Treatment probes (i.e., using trained and untrained picture cards and an unrelated control-task of nonword repetition), a pre/post assessment battery, and a post-treatment survey/interview were administered to assess performance on the treatment task, generalization to other potential ILAT outcomes, and participants' perceptions. Outcomes & Results: Increased accuracy was observed for trained and untrained items. However, two of the four participants were not able to reach a criteria determined a priori for treatment performance. Performance on items that were untrained resulted in some improvements in performance for all participants. Three of the four participants demonstrated small effect sizes in response to ILAT. One participant who demonstrated a medium effect size in response to ILAT also demonstrated a clinical significant change in discourse abilities, a measure of spoken social-functional communication abilities. All participants demonstrated improvements on at least one primary outcomes measure. Two participants, however, demonstrated a decline. All participants, however, perceived a positive experience with ILAT on a qualitative posttreatment survey/interview. Conclusions: Patterns were found between skills directly trained during ILAT, proximal outcomes, and performance on primary and secondary outcome measures of language, social-functional communication, and cognitive-communication, meant to assess generalization of trained skills to similar or potentially related untrained skills. A substantial amount of change (e.g., at least a medium effect size) on proximal outcome measures may be required in order for improvements to occur in primary and secondary outcome measures. Participants' perceptions of a positive treatment experience associated with the ILAT program further supports the value of the treatment. Future research should aim to further examine the influence of ILAT treatment components and participants' characteristics.

<p>Constraint-Induced Therapy (CI) is based on the theory that constraining operationalfunctions will increase the usage and at the same time the recovery of impaired functions. Constraint-Induced Aphasia Therapy (CIAT) is a variant of CI, aimed at people with chronicaphasia. The purpose of this study was to examine whether CIAT would affect the linguisticabilities of eleven individuals with chronic aphasia. The linguistic abilities of each participant were tested before and after the therapy which consisted of thirty hours intensive trainingduring two weeks in accordance with CIAT. Abilities that were examined included namingability, informative speech, listening comprehension and everyday use of language. Measurements of the participants’ length of utterances and speech-rate were also implemented. The test results were analyzed using Wilcoxon signed ranks tests and dependent t-tests. Significant improvements were ascertained in the areas of length ofutterances, naming ability and informative speech. The conclusion of the study was that CIAT has a positive effect on individuals suffering from chronic aphasia, in regards tospeech production. It is unclear whether the method has any effect on language comprehension.</p> / <p>Constraint-Induced Therapy (CI) bygger på teorin att hämmande av välfungerande funktionerökar användningen och därmed återhämtningen av nedsatta funktioner. Constraint-InducedAphasia Therapy (CIAT) är en variant av CI som riktas mot personer med kronisk afasi. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka om CIAT påverkade språkförmågan för elva personer med kronisk afasi. Deltagarnas språkförmåga testades före och efter behandlingen, vilken utgjordes av trettio timmar intensiv träning under två veckor i enlighet med CIAT. Delförmågor som testades var benämningsförmåga, informativt tal, hörförståelse samt språkanvändning i vardagen. Mätningar gjordes också av deltagarnas taltempo och genomsnittliga yttrandelängd. Deltagarnas resultat från språktesten analyserades med Wilcoxon signed ranks test och beroende t-test. Signifikanta förbättringar kunde ses inomområdena yttrandelängd, benämningsförmåga samt informativt tal. Slutsatsen var att CIAT har en positiv effekt på personer med kronisk afasi vad gäller talproduktion. Det är dockoklart huruvida metoden påverkar språkförståelse.</p>

Constraint-Induced Therapy (CI) is based on the theory that constraining operationalfunctions will increase the usage and at the same time the recovery of impaired functions. Constraint-Induced Aphasia Therapy (CIAT) is a variant of CI, aimed at people with chronicaphasia. The purpose of this study was to examine whether CIAT would affect the linguisticabilities of eleven individuals with chronic aphasia. The linguistic abilities of each participant were tested before and after the therapy which consisted of thirty hours intensive trainingduring two weeks in accordance with CIAT. Abilities that were examined included namingability, informative speech, listening comprehension and everyday use of language. Measurements of the participants’ length of utterances and speech-rate were also implemented. The test results were analyzed using Wilcoxon signed ranks tests and dependent t-tests. Significant improvements were ascertained in the areas of length ofutterances, naming ability and informative speech. The conclusion of the study was that CIAT has a positive effect on individuals suffering from chronic aphasia, in regards tospeech production. It is unclear whether the method has any effect on language comprehension. / Constraint-Induced Therapy (CI) bygger på teorin att hämmande av välfungerande funktionerökar användningen och därmed återhämtningen av nedsatta funktioner. Constraint-InducedAphasia Therapy (CIAT) är en variant av CI som riktas mot personer med kronisk afasi. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka om CIAT påverkade språkförmågan för elva personer med kronisk afasi. Deltagarnas språkförmåga testades före och efter behandlingen, vilken utgjordes av trettio timmar intensiv träning under två veckor i enlighet med CIAT. Delförmågor som testades var benämningsförmåga, informativt tal, hörförståelse samt språkanvändning i vardagen. Mätningar gjordes också av deltagarnas taltempo och genomsnittliga yttrandelängd. Deltagarnas resultat från språktesten analyserades med Wilcoxon signed ranks test och beroende t-test. Signifikanta förbättringar kunde ses inomområdena yttrandelängd, benämningsförmåga samt informativt tal. Slutsatsen var att CIAT har en positiv effekt på personer med kronisk afasi vad gäller talproduktion. Det är dockoklart huruvida metoden påverkar språkförståelse.

<div>Background: Structural priming – a tendency to reuse previously encountered sentence structures – has been shown to facilitate production of sentences in persons with aphasia (PWA). However, the task-specific and person-specific factors that modulate the strength of priming effects in PWA remain largely unknown. This study examined (a) if PWA and healthy older adults (HOA) demonstrate improved production of passive sentences following comprehension of passive (as opposed to active) prime sentences, (b) whether repeated use of a verb between a prime and target sentence boosts priming effects, and (c) whether individual participants’ deficits in syntactic processing modulate degrees of priming effects.</div><div><br></div><div>Method: The participants (16 HOA and 13 PWA) completed a comprehension-to-production structural priming task. For prime sentences, they completed a sentence-to-picture matching comprehension task. Then, they described a target action picture, which could be described in an active or passive sentence structure. For half of the prime-target pairs, the verb was repeated to compare the priming effects in the same vs. different verb prime conditions (i.e., lexical boost). To analyze individual variability, we examined if PWA’s scores on clinical measures of syntactic comprehension and production were associated with a positive priming effect.</div><div><br></div><div>Results: Both HOA and PWA showed increased production of passive sentences following comprehension of passive primes, although the priming effect was reduced for PWA. A significant lexical boost was found in HOA, but not for PWA. Within PWA, individuals with higher scores on clinical measures of syntactic production, but not syntactic comprehension, showed a significant priming effect.</div><div><br></div><div>Conclusion: The findings suggest that implicit comprehension-to-production structural priming is preserved in aphasia and that lexically-mediated structural priming may not be critical to effectiveness of structural priming in aphasia. Preliminary results indicate that individuals’ syntactic skills in the domain of production may need to be considered when comprehension-to-production priming is used to improve sentence production.</div>