Semantic & Naming Therapy

Rating

This resource aims to provide clinicians with evidence-based therapy tasks to enhance naming and word finding abilities in people with aphasia. The resource addresses the clinical questions of not just 'what' to do, but 'why' it is being done, and 'how' to do it. This resource provides the clinician with tasks that are known to strengthen the link between the semantic system and the phonological output lexicon. The development of the treatment tasks has adhered to current models of psycholinguistic processing and current impairment-based aphasia treatment efficacy research. Many of the tasks items are controlled for word frequency, image ability, and length. Some important and novel features of this therapy resource are that it provides the clinician with: theoretical descriptions of how each task might be influencing the language processing system; detailed instructions about tasks and how to teach-on-error; structure for monitoring progress and moving clients to higher or lower treatment levels; and a means through which rate of presentation can be controlled and manipulated. In addition, there is repetition and integration of key naming items across different therapy tasks to enhance and reinforce learning, in line with current cognitive learning theory. The resource uses illustrations and includes: a treatment manual containing all information and worksheets; and a CD with a copy of all worksheets, as well as computerised naming, oral reading, and repetition tasks.

A4 (297 x 210mm), 184pp Wire-o-bound ISBN 978-0-86388-924-0 ORDER CODE D11-002-5800 GBP46.25

About the Author

Elizabeth Cardell's clinical and research work in psycholinguistics and aphasia spans over 25 years. Her research Master's degree (1999) investigated treatment efficacy for lexical-semantic anomia, and her PhD (2006) explored online sentence processing in aphasia. After a long clinical career in neurorehabilitation, Elizabeth entered full-time academia in 2008 and is currently Head of the Master of Speech Pathology program at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland. As well as co-ordinating Special Interest Groups, she is in high demand as a presenter in psycholinguistics and aphasia and was the Speech Pathology National Tour Speaker for 2007. She has published a number of journal articles and is currently investigating how online methodologies can translate to clinical practice as well as the issue of treatment dosage to optimise communication outcomes. Melissa Lawrie has over 25 years experience as a clinical speech pathologist in the area of rehabilitation and aged care, and has a special interest in aphasia therapy. Melissa has been a key advocate of the psycholinguistic approach to aphasia treatment and was one of the founding members and coordinators of the Queensland Cognitive Neuropsychology Special Interest Group (1992) and the Psycholinguistics in Practice group (2009). She has also presented workshops in the area of aphasia. Melissa is currently the Director of Speech Pathology at the Gold Coast Health Service District and has a particular interest in developing new, intensive service-delivery models to enhance communication outcomes for different populations, including people with aphasia. In this role, Melissa has been successful in gaining several research and infrastructure grants.

Table of Contents

About the Author