Abstract
A 62-years-old female with mild conduction aphasia was studied for the purpose of controlling phonemic paraphasia. Her speech, characterized by phonemic paraphasia, showed a remarkable deterioration as the number of syllables in a word increased. In order to control this problem, Kana transcription was used. Picturable words and abstract Kanji words exceeding 5 syllables were chosen. The program included three steps: (1) to count the number of mora in a word and put circles as many as the mora, (2) to write Kana one by one in the circles, (3) to read the word aloud with a finger tapping each circle rhythmically. The results of the confrontation naming showed that this Kana transcription program was much more effective comparing with repetition program, and the performance of non-treated words remained low. Applying this program to reading aloud of Kanji words, the same effect was obtained. Since the underlying mechanism of the phonemic paraphasia is the deficit of phonemic selection and seriation, Kana transcription procedure activated this phonological processing system and clarified the acoustic form of a target word present but seems to be unstable.
