Syntax Treatment for Aphasia Recovery: Implicit Learning Through Structural Priming

Purpose: Although sentence production deficits are common in persons with aphasia (PWA), available treatments are limited. Implicit structural priming has been receiving increasing attention as a novel strategy to facilitate syntactic processing and learning in PWA. This study showcases implicit priming-based syntax treatment for aphasia recovery (STAR) as a sentence production treatment that can be delivered virtually. Method: Two participants with Broca's aphasia (A1 and A2) completed baseline, 15 sessions of oral reading structural priming treatment, and 1- and 2-month follow-up testing over videoconferencing. Participant A1 was treated for transitive sentences (e.g., “the boy is chasing the girl”) and Participant A2 for dative sentences (e.g., “the man is showing a bike to the girl”). Treatments were tailored according to their levels of sentence production impairments at baseline. Generalization to untrained stimuli and untrained tasks (standardized aphasia tests and discourse tasks) was also assessed. Results: Both participants improved on trained and untrained sentences. In addition, both participants showed improved production of verbs and sentences on the Northwestern Assessment of Verbs and Sentences, although improvements on discourse tasks were limited. These improvements were maintained at 2-month follow-up. Conclusions: The preliminary efficacy of STAR was demonstrated across sentence types and language tasks and through virtual delivery. Capitalizing on implicit structural priming, STAR holds a promise as a versatile intervention for sentence production that can be tailored for individual PWA. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.30906455