Aphasic patients in a rehabilitation program: scheduling speech and language services.

Eleven 10-item tests from the Porch Index of Communicative Ability (PICA), were administered to 14 aphasic adults participating in a rehabilitation program. Tests were given once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Results indicate that overall communicative functioning was significantly higher for morning assessments, although some individual patients did better in the afternoon. The primary implication of these results is the importance of consistency in scheduling patient contacts when measuring the effects of treatments rendered. Considerations in determining optimum schedules and aiding individual patients in compensating for reduced efficiency due to time of day are discussed.