The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of progressive relaxation training on the verbal ability of adult aphasics. Sixteen adult aphasics (15 males and 1 female) were administered a battery of four, 16 item verbal tests (VTB) following a period of relaxation training and a control period. The tasks of the VTB paralleled the four verbal subtests of the PICA (Porch, 1967). Subjects were required to give the function of 15 common objects, to name each object, to produce the name of each object after hearing a carrier phrase and to repeat the name of each object. Relaxation procedures employed a modified Jacobson (1929) technique.

For many years, treatment for word retrieval deficits has involved the use of various cueing techniques to help trigger retrieval of target words. Research has shown that accuracy for future retrieval of target words is best achieved by training subjects with semantically based cues. Personalized cues that are created by the subjects themselves to help remember a target word have been shown to be the most effective of the semantically based cues. However, even with the use of personalized cues, accuracy for naming tasks has been found to decrease once training is completed. Current research in memory indicates that, for normal subjects, techniques that facilitate future recall of information include testing, additional study, overlearning, and distributed practice. This research examined the influence of posttraining maintenance sessions on the long term memory of subjects with aphasia. The goal was to compare the effect on naming accuracy for stimuli (a) presented in two additional training sessions (b) presented in one additional session, (c) not presented in any additional sessions. Additional sessions presented opportunities for testing, study, overlearning, and distributed practice for selected stimuli. Three adult male subjects with moderate aphasia created their own cues to help remember 30 pictures of famous characters. During training sessions, these cues were presented to trigger name recall. Following the end of the 3-week training period, the 30 pictures were divided into groups of 10 cards called, A, B, and C. There were two additional training sessions for A, one for B, and none for C. A probe following the last session showed that for two of the subjects, the addition of posttraining maintenance sessions acted to enhance naming accuracy, and two sessions resulted in much higher accuracy than one session. This is consistent with research with normal subjects and suggests that short intermittent training sessions can help maintain naming accuracy with subjects with aphasia.

This investigation examined the effects of task difficulty on aphasic individuals' naming performance. Subjects were presented lists of easy-to-name and difficult-to-name items. In the high success condition, difficult lists were interspersed among a larger number of easy lists. In the low success condition, easy lists were interspersed among a larger number of difficult lists. Percentages of correct responses for administration of each list were calculated for each subject. Group means for each list were derived by averaging the individual scores. Group means in the high success and the low success conditions were compared with baseline measures to determine experimental effects. No statistical analyses were performed. Results did not find that task difficulty effects aphasic individuals' naming performance.

The purpose of this study was to compare the graphic production of fluent and non-fluent aphasic groups in terms of motoric and linguistic characteristics at three intervals of recovery, and to analyze change over time after combining the fluent and non-fluent aphasic groups.

alterações que a afasia acarreta na escrita do sujeito acometido por esta patologia, além de proporcionar uma nova abordagem no processo terapêutico do afásico. Para tanto, participaram desta pesquisa 04 sujeitos portadores de afasia que fazem parte da Oficina de Escrita do Grupo de Convivência da Universidade Católica de Pernambuco (UNICAP), a qual tem como finalidade abordar e trabalhar os aspectos relacionados à linguagem escrita. A análise dos dados foi qualitativa, uma vez que este estudo se propôs a observar a produção textual do afásico diante de diferentes gêneros textuais, e assim identificar qual o gênero textual mais recorrente e produzido com maior facilidade pelo portador de afasia. Após a análise dos dados coletados, foi possível observar que os afásicos apresentaram facilidade em produzir gêneros textuais ligados a situações concretas, em contraposição à produção dos gêneros que necessitaram realizar uma relação com situações abstratas. Deste modo, é importante que os fonoaudiólogos admitam uma postura funcional ao invés da organicista, possibilitando o distanciamento dos testes que focalizam usos descontextualizados da linguagem, os quais excluem os aspectos subjetivos e heterogêneos da linguagem. Portanto, a (re)habilitação da afasia deve permitir que os afásicos utilizem práticas de escrita que só os gêneros escritos podem proporcionar, uma vez que esta postura mostra-se como um caminho frutífero para o trabalho terapêutico fonoaudiológico

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:24:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_angela_aragao.pdf: 2331190 bytes, checksum: 9c2adc94211ed5b096e2a430cc00776d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-02-28 / Aphasia is a disease that interferes directly in the communication of the individual, specially the in expressive one. In most cases, when the aphasic is in the process of (re) empowerment, is given more emphasis on the aspect of oral, leaving aside the writing. However, communication consists of two ways, and therefore it is interesting development work aimed also to write. It is noted that in some cases, the writing, is so poor as to oral and it is necessary to include it in the therapeutic process. Thus, the study of textual production, in written form, using the different genres textual, had intended to observe the changes that aphasia carries on writing of the subject affected by this pathology, in addition to providing a new therapeutic approach in the process of afásico. To do so, participated in this search 04 subject bearers of aphasia that are part of the Workshop on Writing Group's Convivência of the Catholic University of Pernambuco (UNICAP), which aims to address the issues and work related to the written language. The analysis of the qualitative data was, as this study is proposed to observe the production textual the aphasic before textual different genres, and so identify what kind textual more applicant and produced more easily by the bearer of aphasia. After analysis of the data collected has been that afásicos showed ease in producing textual genres linked to concrete situations, as opposed to production of the genera needing achieve a relationship with abstract situations. Thus, it is important that fonoaudiólogos, admit a posture functional instead of organicista, enabling the distancing of tests, focusing uses descontextualizados of language, which exclude the heterogeneous and subjective aspects of the language. Therefore, the (re) Empowerment of aphasia should allow the afásicos use practices of writing that only the written genres can provide, since this attitude shows itself as a path for the fruitful work therapeutic fonoaudiológico / alterações que a afasia acarreta na escrita do sujeito acometido por esta patologia, além de proporcionar uma nova abordagem no processo terapêutico do afásico. Para tanto, participaram desta pesquisa 04 sujeitos portadores de afasia que fazem parte da Oficina de Escrita do Grupo de Convivência da Universidade Católica de Pernambuco (UNICAP), a qual tem como finalidade abordar e trabalhar os aspectos relacionados à linguagem escrita. A análise dos dados foi qualitativa, uma vez que este estudo se propôs a observar a produção textual do afásico diante de diferentes gêneros textuais, e assim identificar qual o gênero textual mais recorrente e produzido com maior facilidade pelo portador de afasia. Após a análise dos dados coletados, foi possível observar que os afásicos apresentaram facilidade em produzir gêneros textuais ligados a situações concretas, em contraposição à produção dos gêneros que necessitaram realizar uma relação com situações abstratas. Deste modo, é importante que os fonoaudiólogos admitam uma postura funcional ao invés da organicista, possibilitando o distanciamento dos testes que focalizam usos descontextualizados da linguagem, os quais excluem os aspectos subjetivos e heterogêneos da linguagem. Portanto, a (re)habilitação da afasia deve permitir que os afásicos utilizem práticas de escrita que só os gêneros escritos podem proporcionar, uma vez que esta postura mostra-se como um caminho frutífero para o trabalho terapêutico fonoaudiológico