Effects of Gesture and Semantic-Phonologic Treatments for Verb Retrieval

1. Effects of Gesture and Semantic-Phonologic Treatments for Verb Retrieval Amy D. Rodriguez 1,2, Anastasia M. Raymer 1,3 , Leslie J. Gonzalez Rothi 1,2 1Malcom Randall VA RR&D Brain Rehabilitation Research Center, Gainesville, FL; 2University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 3Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Reports have suggested that gesture treatments and semantic-phonologic treatments are effective in improving lexical retrieval in anomia. Most studies focus on noun production, with verb production less commonly reported. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of gesture treatment and semantic-phonologic treatment on verb retrieval within the same participants. We predicted that gesture treatment might be superior to semantic-phonologic treatment for verbs, as pantomimes and verbs have closer neural correlates (Druks, 2002). RESULTS Effect Sizes for Trained and Untrained Items Visual display of performance on daily naming probes P198 P281 Baseline Sem-Phon Tx (red) M Gesture Tx (blue) Baseline Gesture TX (blue) M Sem-Phon Tx (red) M • DISCUSSION • Of the four participants, three demonstrated significant naming improvement on trained items with the semantic- phonologic treatment and one demonstrated significant naming improvement on trained items with the gesture treatment • These results suggest that gesture treatment may not be superior to semantic-phonologic treatment for verbs • Findings indicate that verbs are amenable to same types of treatments as nouns, despite their presumed different neural representations • Lack of generalization to untrained items suggests that gesture treatments and semantic-phonologic treatments affect individual representations rather than the word retrieval process, so careful selection of verbs is necessary for functional gains in ability to communicate • Results need to be replicated in similar individuals with verb retrieval impairments with order of treatment presentation counterbalanced • Future studies should also continue to investigate the differences between gesture treatments and semantic- phonologic treatments and focus on ways to enhance their generalizability METHODS Participants Treatment Design • Single-participant across behaviors and participants • Gesture treatments and semantic-phonologic treatments applied randomly in each participant with one-month break between treatment phases • Baselines and Daily Probes • 60 pictures selected from set of 250 verbs for naming: 20 verbs trained during each treatment phase (n=40) and 20 verbs never trained • Baseline:Probe tasks administered in 4-8 consecutive sessions • Treatment phases: Probe tasks administered daily prior to treatment P304 P326 Baseline Gesture Tx (blue) M Sem-Phon Tx (red) M Baseline Gesture TX (blue) M Sem-Phon Tx (red) Treatment Procedure • Each treatment phase consisted of 10 one-hour treatment sessions • Gesture Treatment: 1. Stimulus was presented, clinician modeled the target verb and gesture, participant repeated the target verb and gesture three times 2. Participant practiced the target gesture three times 3. Participant practiced the target word three times 4. After a 5-second interval, participant produced the target word and gesture • Semantic-Phonologic Treatment: 1. Stimulus was presented, clinician modeled the target verb, participant repeated the target verb three times 2. Participant answered four yes/no questions about the meaning and sound of the target word (related verb, associated noun, initial phoneme, rhyming word) 3. Participant produced the target word three times • 4. After a 5-second interval, participant produced the target word ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: Supported by the Office of Research and Development, Rehabilitation R&D Service, Department of Veterans Affairs, an NIH (NIDCD) Program Project grant to the University of Florida (subcontract to Old Dominion University), and an NIDCD Fellowship for “Research Symposium in Clinical Aphasiology”.