During his presentation on primary progressive aphasia, Dr. Robert Hurley mentioned a specific patient that was believed to suffer from semantic primary progressive aphasia but in reality she had a unimodal deficit in the ability to verbalize the name of the objects. Once Hurley gave her a piece of paper and pen she was significantly better at the object recognition task. This got me thinking about whether sign language could help in her case, or possibly cases of primary progressive aphasia. It seems logical that sign language would help the lady who had a unimodal deficit in verbalizing the name of objects, but what about patients who suffer from primary progressive aphasia.
After a little bit of searching I came across a study that Cynthia Pattee and her colleagues conducted in 2006 that found evidence that both text to speech and american sign language are treatment possibilities for progressive speech and language disorders. Specifically the researchers found that the text to speech and ASL increased the number of words, correct information units and correct usage of those information units for progressive speech and language disorder patients. Hopefully there will be more research done on how alternative means of communication could help people who suffer from primary progressive aphasia.
Pattee et al (2006)
http://journals.lww.com/intjrehabilres/Abstract/2006/06000/Effects_of_alternative_communication_on_the.10.aspx
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