Balancing Effortful and Errorless Learning in Naming Treatment for Aphasia

Summary

Aphasia is a language disorder caused by stroke and other acquired brain injuries that affects over two million people in the United States and which interferes with life participation and quality of life. Anomia (i.e., word- finding difficulty) is a primary frustration for people with aphasia. Picture-based naming treatments for anomia are widely used in aphasia rehabilitation, but current treatment approaches do not address the long-term retention of naming abilities and do not focus on using these naming abilities in daily life. The current research aims to evaluate novel anomia treatment approaches to improve long-term retention and generalization to everyday life.

This study is one of two that are part of a larger grant. This record is for sub-study 1, which will adaptively balance effort and accuracy using speeded naming deadlines.

Conditions

• Aphasia
• Stroke

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Accuracy-maximized condition

Naming treatment condition in which the target will be immediately provided for repetition at picture onset.

BEHAVIORAL

Effort-maximized condition

Naming treatment condition in which participants will have up to 10 seconds to respond before the target is provided for repetition.

BEHAVIORAL

Effort-accuracy balanced condition

Naming treatment condition in which naming deadlines will be determined based on the balanced effort-to-accuracy benefit ratio formalized above, calculated on clinician-provided accuracy and response time ratings. Deadlines will be recalculated session-by-session to adjust to participant-specific treatment gains over time.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Massachusetts, Amherst

  collaborator OTHER

• National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)

  collaborator NIH

• University of Pittsburgh

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• William Evans, PhD · University of Pittsburgh

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

CROSSOVER

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-11-27

Primary Completion

2027-01-31

Completion

2028-01-31

Countries

• United States

Study Locations