2021 Volume 41 Issue 2 Pages 239-249
Objective : To evaluate the effects of speech and language training in naming, kanji (Japanese morphograms) writing, and kana (Japanese phonograms) writing in a Japanese patient who met the clinical diagnostic criteria for logopenic variant primary progressive aphasia (lvPPA).
Method : The immediate, short-term, and long-term effects of the training were assessed in a singlesubject, multi-baseline, experimental design across behaviors that consisted of the following phases : baseline, training, follow-up, short-term maintenance, and long-term maintenance. Generalization occurred in other words tested with a different word list during the baseline and follow-up phases.
Results : All training resulted in immediate effects. Long-term effects were lost only with kana writing. The results of kana writing during the follow-up, short-term maintenance, and long-term maintenance phases were significantly lower than those of kanji writing. Generalization did not occur either in naming, kanji writing, or kana writing.
Conclusion : Re-acquisition of words was possible even in a patient with lvPPA. In our view, the loss of the long-term effect of kana writing was due to progression of word retrieval impairment and recall impairment of single kana characters. Re-acquisition and maintenance of kanji may have been possible because a direct pathway to access mental images of the characters from the lexical semantics remained intact.
