City University London, United Kingdom.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2013 Feb;56(1):337-51. doi: 10.1044/1092-4388(2012/11-0232). Epub 2012 Aug 15.
In this study, the authors investigated whether gesture, naming, and strategic treatment improved the communication skills of 14 people with severe aphasia.
All participants received 15 hr of gesture and naming treatment (reported in a companion article [Marshall et al., 2012]). Half the group received a further 15 hr of strategic therapy, whereas the remaining 7 participants received no further input. The effects of therapy on communication were assessed with 2 novel measures. These measures required each participant to convey simple messages and narratives to his or her communication partner. In both assessments, a subset of the stimuli featured items that had been targets in gesture or naming treatment.
Performance on the communication measures was stable over 2 baseline assessments but improved after gesture and naming treatment. Those participants who received additional strategic therapy made further gains on the message but not on the narrative task. Communication gains were not specific to the stimuli featuring trained items.
This study suggests that gesture and naming treatments can benefit interactive communication. The additional benefits of strategic therapy were less clear-cut but did have an impact on the transmission of simple messages. Gains seem to reflect the development of general communication skills rather than the use of trained gestures and/or words.
在这项研究中，作者研究了手势、命名和策略治疗是否能提高 14 名严重失语症患者的沟通技能。
所有参与者都接受了 15 小时的手势和命名治疗（详见一篇相关文章[Marshall 等人，2012]）。一半参与者接受了另外 15 小时的策略治疗，而其余 7 名参与者则没有接受进一步的治疗。治疗对沟通的影响通过 2 种新的评估方法进行评估。这些评估要求每位参与者向他/她的沟通伙伴传达简单的信息和叙述。在这两项评估中，刺激的一个子集包含了手势或命名治疗的目标项目。
沟通评估在 2 次基线评估中表现稳定，但在手势和命名治疗后有所提高。那些接受了额外的策略治疗的参与者在信息传递方面有了进一步的提高，但在叙述任务中没有提高。沟通的提高并不是特定于训练项目的刺激。
本研究表明，手势和命名治疗可以有益于互动沟通。策略治疗的额外好处不太明确，但确实对简单信息的传递有影响。这些收益似乎反映了一般沟通技能的发展，而不是使用了训练有素的手势和/或单词。
