In the past two decades, single-case studies evaluated the effect of massed repetition training to improve speech production and short-term memory deficits in conduction aphasia (CA). Improvements were reported in treated language and memory domains with modest generalisation of gains to spontaneous speech or auditory comprehension. Although these results are encouraging, sentence repetition training has not been compared with distributed speech-language therapy, and no studies have examined the role of pharmacological interventions to enhance gains promoted by these behavioural interventions in CA. To explore repetition and imitation in the context of neural basis and treatment of aphasia, we developed three studies (STUDY 1, 2 & 3).
Study 1:
The effects of massed sentence repetition therapy (MSRT) were compared to those of distributed speech-language therapy (DSLT) in measures of verbal output, short-term memory and repetition in patients with chronic post-stroke CA receiving treatment with the cholinesterase inhibitor donepezil (DP). Both interventions improved performance in speech production tasks, but better improvements were found with DP-MSRT than with DP-DSLT. Larger treatment effects were found for DP-MSRT in comparison with baselines and DP-DSLT in repetition of word pairs and triplets, and novel and experimental sentences with generalisation of gains to aphasia severity, connected speech and non-treated control sentences.
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