Effects of intensive phonomotor treatment on reading in eight individuals with aphasia and phonological alexia.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to investigate effects of a multimodal treatment of phonology, phonomotor treatment, on the reading abilities of persons with aphasia (PWA) with phonological alexia.

METHOD: In a retrospective, single-group design, this study presents pre-, post-, and 3-months posttreatment data for 8 PWA with phonological alexia. Participants completed 60 hr of phonomotor treatment over 6 weeks. Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests and group effect sizes comparing pre-, immediately post-, and 3-months posttreatment performance on tests of phonological processing and reading were performed.

RESULTS

Group data showed phonological processing and oral reading of real words and nonwords improved significantly posttreatment; these gains were maintained 3 months later. No group improvement was found for reading comprehension; however, one individual did show improvement immediately post- and 3-months posttreatment.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides support that phonomotor treatment is a viable approach to improve phonological processing and oral reading for PWA with phonological alexia. The lack of improvement with comprehension is inconsistent with prior work using similar treatments (Conway et al., 1998; Kendall et al., 2003). However, this difference can, in part, be accounted for by differences in variables, such as treatment intensity and frequency, outcome measures, and alexia severity.