Effects of Phonomotor Treatment on the Reading Abilities of Individuals with Aphasia and Phonological Alexia

A left hemisphere stroke often results in aphasia characterized by impaired reading (Cherney, 2004; Webb & Love, 1983) and phonological processing abilities (Blumstein, Baker, & Goodglass, 1977; den Ouden & Bastiaanse, 2005). Research has shown that treatment focused at the level of the phoneme improves reading abilities in persons with aphasia (PWA) and phonological alexia (Conway et al., 1998; Kendall et al., 1998; Kendall et al., 2003). These findings are theoretically supported by a connectionist model of phonology (Nadeau, 2001), and a multimodal model of phonological processing and reading (Alexander & Slinger, 2004)