A semantic navigation strategy promotes naming in patients with aphasia / 中华物理医学与康复杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To explore the generalization effect of a semantic navigation strategy(SNS)on naming in patients with aphasia.Methods Fourteen patients with aphasia were randomly divided into an SNS group (n =7)and an unrelated semantic(US)group(n =7).One hundred and twenty-two words chosen from Chinese word association norms were used in this study.The presentation sequence of words was generated automatically with network analysis techniques for the SNS group and randomly without network analysis techniques for the US group.After baseline tests using the western aphasia battery(WAB)and the mini-mental status examination(MMSE),all patients received language training once a day for 10 consecutive days.The amount of correct responses was recorded every day in order to draw the learning curve.The generalization effect was evaluated with 46 untrained items before and after training with all patients.Results The average learning curve of the SNS group was steeper than that of the US group.Correct responses on trained items were significantly more frequent in the SNS group than in the US group after the 6th day of training.After 10 days the frequency of correct responses on untrained items in the SNS group was significantly higher than it had been before training,and higher than the frequency after training in the US group.The frequency of no response on untrained items in the SNS group had declined,and it had declined more than in the US group.Conclusion A semantic navigation strategy may promote significant generalization while improving the learning curve in naming among patients with aphasia.