A contextual approach to facilitating word retrieval in non-fluent aphasia

Although all individuals with aphasia have difficulty retrieving words, the degree of difficulty depends on both the aphasia profile and the linguistic context. Speakers with non-fluent aphasia have more difficulty retrieving words in connected speech than in naming, whereas speakers with fluent aphasia often show the opposite pattern. To address the hypothesized impairment in syntactic input, a therapy approach designed to facilitate word-retrieval in context was contrasted with a semantic feature approach in two participants with Broca’s aphasia. The contextual approach proved to be effective; however, the semantic feature approach was equally effective. Implications for the therapeutic mechanism are discussed