Abstract
A retrospective investigation was made into the recovery processes of the auditory comprehension of twenty-two post -stroke aphasic patients treated at the Speech Clinic of the Seikeikai Hospital beween 1978 and 1986. The two sub-tests of the Standard Language Test of Aphasia (SLTA) —Short Sentence Comprehension (No. 2 ) and Oral Command (No. 3 ) -and the Seven Graded Aphasia Sacle were used for comparison. Fourteen subjects underwent the SLTA six months after their onset and were retested more than three times at a three to twelve month interval. Eight subjects underwent the SLTA more than three times after one year of their onset. The results were as follows. (1) After six months postonset, the severity of the disturbances in auditory comprehension did not change significantly. It was suggested that the score of the SLTA at the six-month postonset was important to predict the severity of the disturbances in the future. (2) Although the severity of the disturbances in auditory comprehension after six months postonset did not change in most of the patients, there were some patients who showed improvement in the score of the SLTA and ⁄ or the Seven Graded Scale. (3) After some period of plateau, out of the twenty-two cases, three patients showed some improvement in the score of the SLTA and ⁄ or the Seven Graded Scale. It was suggested that long-term follow-up was important to study the recovery processes of aphasics.
