Theoretically based treatment for sentence comprehension deficits in aphasia

描述（由申请人提供）：2010年健康人计划的一个目标是减少不同人群的健康差距。失语症患者句子理解缺陷的诊断和治疗是一个仍然存在差异的领域，尽管这个主题具有重要的理论意义。然而，目前关于这一主题的研究缺乏具体的建议，如何训练失语症患者的句子理解技能，以及在何种程度上理解技能的泛化发生在相似的句法结构的句子和不同的理解任务。该项目的目标是开发一种有效的，理论上合理的，治疗中风后失语症患者的句子理解缺陷。我们的方法来开发有效的治疗这些缺陷将指导语言学，心理语言学和失语症的结果。该项目包括两个不同的阶段：第一阶段：R21（第一年）的具体计划和里程碑在项目的第一阶段（R21），将持续一年，我们将开发两种有效的治疗句法理解缺陷-一个基于图片匹配和一个基于对象制定。Mild将是这些疗法有效性的指标。今年，我们还将开发最佳治疗处方（治疗会话的频率和持续时间）以及用于训练和推广的刺激。第二阶段：R33（第2-5年）在该项目的第二阶段（R33），我们将研究第一阶段开发的治疗方法的更广泛的临床用途。我们将解决的关键问题的收购率治疗项目，推广到未经训练的项目，终止治疗后的性能维护，转移到日常的理解任务，以及最佳的病人选择培训。这一阶段的预期结果是一种新的治疗方法，其临床效用得到了很好的表征，并可供临床医生用于适当的失语症患者。 公共卫生相关性：这个项目是相关的，因为它将解决语言恢复的重要问题后，理论为基础的句子理解治疗失语症患者。在失语症中，理解句子的能力经常受到影响，并且会损害对句子的理解，其中句法决定了意义的各个方面，例如主题角色。我们将首先开发两种新的治疗方法，并在研究的第二阶段，确定如何成功地训练一个结构推广到其他结构，它如何导致进一步治疗的节省，它如何影响段落理解，以及它持续多久。该结果有望成为一种有效和高效的训练方案，可用于治疗失语症患者的句法理解缺陷。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): One goal of the Healthy People 2010 program is to reduce health disparities across different segments of the population. Diagnosis and treatment of sentence comprehension deficits in patients with aphasia is one area where disparities continue to exist even though this topic is of great theoretical importance. The current research on this topic, however, lacks specific recommendations on how to train sentence comprehension skills in patients with aphasia and to what extent generalization of comprehension skills occurs across sentences of similar syntactic structure and across different comprehension tasks. The goal of the project is to develop an effective, theoretically sound, treatment for sentence comprehension deficits in patients with aphasia following stroke. Our approach to developing effective therapies for these deficits will be guided by results in linguistics, psycholinguistics, and aphasiology. This project consists of two distinct phases: Phase 1: Specific Plans and Milestones for R21 (Year 1) In the first (R21) phase of the project, which will last one year, we will develop two effective therapies for syntactic comprehension deficits - one based on picture matching and one based on object enactment. Milestones will be measures of the effectiveness of these therapies. In this year, we will also develop the optimal treatment prescription (frequency and duration of therapy sessions) and the stimuli to be utilized for training and generalization. Phase 2: R33 (Years 2-5) in the second (R33) phase of the project, we will investigate the wider clinical utility of the treatment developed in Phase 1. We will address the critical issues of rate of acquisition of treated items, generalization to untrained items, maintenance of performance after termination of treatment, transfer to everyday comprehension tasks, and optimal patient selection for training. The expected outcome of this phase is a novel treatment approach whose clinical utility is well characterized and that can be used by clinicians with appropriate patients with aphasia. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This project is relevant because it will address the important issue of language recovery following a theoretically based sentence comprehension treatment for patients with aphasia. The ability to understand sentences is often affected in aphasia and impairs comprehension of sentences in which syntax determines aspects of meaning such as thematic roles. We will first develop two new methods of treatment and, in the second phase of the research, determine how successfully training one structure generalizes to others, how it leads to savings in further treatments, how it affects passage comprehension, and how long it lasts. The result is expected to be an effective and efficient training protocol that can be used to treat deficits in syntactically based comprehension people with aphasia.