Treatment of metaphor interpretation deficits subsequent to traumatic brain injury.

OBJECTIVE: To improve oral interpretation of metaphors by patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). DESIGN: Both single subject experimental design and group analysis. SETTING: Patients' homes. PARTICIPANTS: Eight adult patients with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury sustained 3 to 20 years before testing. INTERVENTION: The Metaphor Training Program consisted typically of 10 baseline sessions, 3 to 9 1-hour sessions of structured intervention, and 10 posttraining baseline sessions. Training used extensive practice with simple graphic displays to illustrate semantic associations. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Quality of orally produced metaphor interpretation and accuracy of line orientation judgments served as dependent measures obtained during baseline, training, posttraining, and at a 3- to 4-month follow-up. Untrained line orientation judgments provided a control measure. RESULTS: Group data showed significant improvement in metaphor interpretation but not in line orientation. Six of 8 patients individually demonstrated significant improvement in metaphor interpretation. Gains persisted for 3 of the 6 patients at the 3- to 4-month follow-up. CONCLUSION: The Metaphor Training Program can improve cognitive-communication performance for individuals with moderate to severe traumatic brain injury. Results support the potential for treating patients' residual cognitive-linguistic deficits.

Treating Metaphor Interpretation Deficits Subsequent to Right Hemisphere Brain Damage: Preliminary Results.

PURPOSE: This investigation sought to determine whether a structured intervention focused on improving use of semantic associations could improve patients' ability to provide oral interpretations of metaphors following Right Hemisphere Damage (RHD). METHODS: Principles of single subject experimental design provided the basis for the study. Five patients received either 10 or 20 baseline assessments of oral metaphor interpretation and, as a control, assessments of line orientation skill. They then received approximately 10 one-hour sessions of structured intervention to improve oral metaphor interpretation followed by post-training assessments and a 3 month follow up. RESULTS: Patients' performances revealed evidence of good response to training as shown by patients' ability to reach criterion on all intervention tasks and by their significant improvement on oral metaphor interpretation. There was relatively little improvement on the line orientation task. DISCUSSION: The results of this study support the clinical usefulness of this new approach to treating communication deficits associated with RHD due to stroke, even years post-onset. There are, however, questions that remain unanswered. For example, additional data will be needed to gauge how a patient's severity of impairment relates to the potential for improvement, to chart the durability and scope of improvement associated with the training, and to determine the type of visuospatial ability needed for using this type of pictorial material.