Phonological Treatment Paired With Intensive Speech Therapy Promotes Reading Recovery in Chronic Aphasia

A total of 20 clients will be enrolled in the study, 10 will be in control group and 10 in experimental group and will be assigned in a random order. All clients will be given standardized tests pre and post treatment to assess comprehension, expressive, reading and writing skills.

Participants MRI reports will be collected to understand lesion sites and language outcomes. Both experimental and control group will receive individual, group and reading for an hour each. Participants in experimental group will receive an hour of individual phonology therapy. The participants in control group will receive traditional individual therapy. Both groups will receive group and an hour of reading aloud.

Experimental Group Therapy will involve visual and auditory drills. It will also be structured, sequential, repetitive, and cumulative. The sounds targeted during treatment will be separated into five sets which will include 5 sounds - one short vowel and four consonants. For consonants that have two sounds, initially the hard sound will be taught. The soft sound will be taught when the participant is taught the different spelling rules (i.e. "silent 'e'"). Each set will be targeted for three weeks or until mastery.

When teaching a new set of sounds, the clinician will teach the participant the placement of the articulators and the name of the letter. The participant will copy each letter in the set while receiving auditory bombardment of the sound. During auditory bombardment, the participant is encouraged to produce the sound.

Procedure: The participants in the experimental group will receive an hour of phonology treatment, an hour of group therapy, and an hour of reading. The participants in the control group will receive an hour of individual therapy, an hour of reading and an hour of group therapy in a traditional setting. Both groups will work on writing, generative naming during group time, however, the experimental group will focus on self-cueing with the sounds they learn during the individual session. While the control group will simply follow the semantic feature analysis to retrieve the name. Both groups will be read to or read aloud depending on their level.