抄録
The process of a word-finding therapy program for a 40-year-old female with simple aphasia (according to Schuell's classification) was reported. The period covered by the program was 18 months from 5 post-onset-months (POM) to 23 POM, and the aim of the therapy was focused on the improvement of her word-finding ability throughout. The program was devided into two parts: Part I covering the first 6 months (5 POM-10 POM) contained 54 1/2-hour sessions in which auditory stimulation was emphasized to retrieve the word items of daily objects, and Part II covering the rest of the period (10 POM-23 POM) contained 160 1/2-hour sessions in which “kana” characters were used to improve the phonemic paraphasia in her utterances of common verbs and adjectives as well as names of daily objects. In order to observe the generalization of therapy, naming tests of 55 common words were done before and after Part II program. Within-day and between-day fluctuations were also studied in order to observe the qualitative improvement of naming behavior at two points in time, i.e., point 1 during the Part I program and point 2 immediately after the end of the Part II program.
The result showed a marked improvement not only in the word-finding ability but also in oral description of simple pictures, comprehension of oral and written materials, written responses to dictation, spontaneous writing, and oral reading. However, generalization from naming ability in the trained words to that in untrained words was not recognized. Regarding to the fluctuation of her naming skills, the size of betweenday fluctuation was found to be smaller at point 2 than at point 1, while such was not observed in the size of withinday fluctuation.
On the basis of these findings, the effect of the therapy upon her word-finding ability and other language modalities was discussed.
