Abstract
We undertook a long-term follow-up study of 38 severe aphasics. The subjects were all right-handed and had damage in the left cerebral hemisphere. Their scores at their most recovered stage( “plateau level”) on the Standard Language Test of Aphasia (SLTA) were distributed between 0 and 3 points. Their passable items were comprehension and reading aloud of words and letters. They did not show recovery in speech or writing tasks. These results indicate that predicting long-term recovery is difficult during the early stage after onset of aphasia. Protracted aphasic therapy does not always result in good recovery. However, because factors affecting prognosis are not clear, it is necessary to attempt to recover language functions over the long term.
