Sentence processing therapy: Working at the level of the event

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This paper describes the assessment and treatment of a dysphasic subject with severe impairments in sentence production. Investigations revealed poor verb production and reduced access to the verb argument information. Further investigations suggested additional problems at the level of event processing. Errors were elicited on a verb/picture matching task and on a video assessment which required the identification of participant roles from interactive events. Therapy aimed to improve event processing. The subject was asked to identify the agent and theme in video events by selecting relevant photographs. Photo selection was also used to focus on the nature of the verb. Evaluation showed that therapy improved the subject's ability to produce two argument descriptions of action pictures. The structural skills generalized to representations of events which had not been targeted in therapy. The gains in speech production were reflected in a second evaluation procedure in which naïve and familiar observers were asked to judge the content of the subject's output. The subject's time post-illness and lack of change on a picture-naming control suggest that gains were specific to the content of therapy.