Mappingmetoden och bildmaterialet Everyday Life Activities – behandling av agrammatism hos personer med afasi av Broca-typ

Abstract

This pilot study describes a therapy method for persons with Broca´s aphasia. This method is based on the mapping hypothesis (Schwartz, Saffran & Marin 1980). The mapping hypothesis is based on the assumption that agrammatism is caused by an inability to combine syntactic structure with thematic roles. This study describes a combination of the therapy method mentioned above and the Everyday life activities photo series (ELA, Stark 1992). The aim of the study was to investigate if therapy based on a written sentence/picture format is a viable starting-point for future research. The therapy presented combined written sentences with pictures describing everyday life activities. Therapy aimed to improve auditory comprehension and it was expected that this improvement should be reflected in gains in speech production. The subject was asked to identify verb, agent and theme in sentences of varying length. Evaluation indicated an improvement of the subject´s auditory comprehension abilities as well as speech production abilities. Further research is needed to determine if these results are directly related to the treatment method described in this study. This study is a pilot study but a project plan describing a multiple baseline across behaviours and subjects design study with three patients is included.