The Efficacy of Computer-Provided Reading Treatment for Chronic Aphasic Adults

Abstract

We examined the effects of computer-provided reading activities on language performance in chronic aphasic patients. Fifty-five aphasic adults were assigned randomly to one of three conditions: computer reading treatment, computer stimulation, or no treatment. Subjects in the computer groups used computer 3 hours each week for 26 weeks. Computer reading treatment software consisted of visual matching and reading comprehension tasks. Computer stimulation software consisted of nonverbal games and cognitive rehabilitation tasks. Language measures were administered to all subjects at entry and after 3 and 6 months. Significant improvement over the 26 weeks occurred on five language measures for the computer reading treatment group, on one language measure for the computer stimulation group, and on none of the language measures for the no-treatment group. The computer reading treatment group displayed significantly more improvement on the Porch Index of Communicative Ability "Overall" and "Verbal" modality percentiles and on the Western Aphasia Battery Aphasia "Quotient" and "Repetition" subtest than the other two groups. The results suggest that (a) computerized reading treatment can be administered with minimal assistance from a clinician, (b) improvement on the computerized reading treatment tasks generalized to non-computer language performance, (c) improvement resulted from the language content of the software and not stimulation provided by a computer, and (d) the computerized reading treatment we provided to chronic aphasic patients was efficacious.

EFNS Guidelines on cognitive rehabilitation: report of an EFNS Task Force

“…In comparison with an untreated control group, one study by Hagen (1973) was excluded because of the lack of true randomization (the patients were sequentially assigned to treatment or no treatment). Another study (Katz and Wertz, 1997) was probably excluded because it dealt only with computer-assisted reading rehabilitation. Two small RCTs (class I) (Helffenstein and Wechsler, 1982;Thomas-Stonell et al, 1994), which reported positive treatment effects, were excluded from the Cochrane review because they were devoted to communication disorders after TBI.…”

Novel Technology for Treating Individuals with Aphasia and Concomitant Cognitive Deficits

“…[5][6][7] To date, most computer programs for people with aphasia focus on tasks at the single-word level including verbal and written word finding, single-word auditory comprehension skills, and single-word visual recognition and reading comprehension. 3,[8][9][10][11][12][13] We have recently demonstrated the feasibility of a computer program incorporating conversational practice. 14 AphasiaScripts™ provides a more realistic conversational context for practicing language skills than working on single-word tasks.…”

Treating reading comprehension deficits in sub-acute brain injury rehabilitation: Identifying clinical practice and management

“…Surveyed clinicians primarily used cognitive-communication assessments of reading, whereas the studies in the review used assessments from the fields of aphasia, education and neuropsychology. Both survey participants and the research literature 89 identified that outcome measures for reading were often not sensitive in identifying functional changes. The importance of using informal / other measures to assess reading in pwABI was identified in both the systematic review and the clinical survey.…”