A vast body of research has been dedicated to developing and refining verb argument structure (VAS) therapies for clients with Broca’s aphasia. Many of these studies have focused on using passive or transitive sentence structures to promote generalization and facilitate the speed of recovery. Other studies have focused using VAS in languages of higher morphosyntactic complexity. Regardless of the specific interest of each study, all VAS research has the common goal of improving the production of nouns and verbs. The underlying belief of these therapies is that agrammatic clients lack the ability to create meaningful connections between verbs and nouns called a thematic role. The thematic role explains who did what within every sentence (Rochon,
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This speech anomaly has earned its name because the client often omits pertinent pieces of information. Nouns and verbs are the most commonly impacted words and have been the focus of a great deal of research. Furthermore, clients with Broca’s aphasia lack the lexical diversity found in typical speech (Links, Hurkmans, & Bastiaanse, 2010). Inability to produce speech in a socially acceptable manner leaves the client venerable to additional troubles. It is commonly accepted fact that Broca’s aphasia has drastic impacts on quality of life, but what areas are most severely changed has been strongly debated. Ross and Weitz (2003) implemented the quality of life measures developed by the World Health Organization to try and solve this dilemma. It is no surprise that many areas of quality of life were impacted such as self-esteem, pain, and access to quality health care. However, the three areas of greatest impact were “level of independence, social relationships, and environment” (Ross & Weitz 2003). Based on these results, is clear that the burden of living with Broca’s aphasia warrants ongoing research for developing effective …show more content…
One technique that has come to the forefront is melodic intonation therapy. In a single-case study conducted by Hough (2010) a 69-year-old man with chronic Broca’s aphasia was able to drastically change his speech production. Traditionally melodic intonation therapy has an element of tapping, but the client in this study made advancements even with a non-tapping modification. Of further value to this study is the fact that he many great improvements with only 4 four weeks of therapy. Results of this study held strong at an 8-week follow-up
This speech anomaly has earned its name because the client often omits pertinent pieces of information. Nouns and verbs are the most commonly impacted words and have been the focus of a great deal of research. Furthermore, clients with Broca’s aphasia lack the lexical diversity found in typical speech (Links, Hurkmans, & Bastiaanse, 2010). Inability to produce speech in a socially acceptable manner leaves the client venerable to additional troubles. It is commonly accepted fact that Broca’s aphasia has drastic impacts on quality of life, but what areas are most severely changed has been strongly debated. Ross and Weitz (2003) implemented the quality of life measures developed by the World Health Organization to try and solve this dilemma. It is no surprise that many areas of quality of life were impacted such as self-esteem, pain, and access to quality health care. However, the three areas of greatest impact were “level of independence, social relationships, and environment” (Ross & Weitz 2003). Based on these results, is clear that the burden of living with Broca’s aphasia warrants ongoing research for developing effective …show more content…
One technique that has come to the forefront is melodic intonation therapy. In a single-case study conducted by Hough (2010) a 69-year-old man with chronic Broca’s aphasia was able to drastically change his speech production. Traditionally melodic intonation therapy has an element of tapping, but the client in this study made advancements even with a non-tapping modification. Of further value to this study is the fact that he many great improvements with only 4 four weeks of therapy. Results of this study held strong at an 8-week follow-up