The Effect of Drawing to Enhance Word Retrieval in Individuals with Chronic Severe Aphasia

Abstract

The purpose of the current study was to examine if individuals with severe chronic aphasia could increase their ability to retrieve object names by implementing the compensatory strategy of drawing. This unique treatment protocol was a combination of drawing and Semantic Feature Analysis. To date, there have been few other studies incorporating a word retrieval approach, such as SFA, and drawing. Three individuals with chronic aphasia who had accompanying anomia participated in the study. Each participant underwent a pre-treatment training on the process of drawing which included: correctly holding a pencil/pen, moving one's hand around the paper, tracing objects, copying pictures of objects, and drawing pictures of objects from memory. The treatment protocol for each participant involved measurement of baseline performance, five days of individual treatment over a period of two weeks, and maintenance sessions. During the actual therapy sessions, treatment on drawing to name using a SFA cueing script was utilized. Participants were administered the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised and the Boston Naming Test-II pre- and post-treatment. The results revealed that each participant demonstrated a clinically remarkable improvement in naming treatment pictures following the SFA treatment protocol; however, only Participant 1 showed some generalization of the retrieval process to untreated stimuli. Participants 2 and 3 demonstrated no generalization to untreated stimuli. Relative to drawing, Participant 1 showed a moderate increase in drawing abilities with some generalization to untreated stimuli. Participants 2 and 3 were able to proficiently draw the treatment and probe stimuli. Although all three participants showed some mild decrease on WAB-R AQ scores, scores on naming and word finding subtests were relatively constant. Participant 1 showed a clinically relevant increase on the BNT-II. Overall, the findings suggest that drawing may be a viable approach for improving word retrieval skills as well as a means for enhancing functional communication abilities in adults with severe, chronic aphasia.