Treating word-form deafness in Wernicke’s aphasia: a case-report

Background Wernicke’s aphasia is typically characterized by impaired auditory comprehension and fluent, paraphasic speech, while word-form deafness has been described as a deficit at the level of the phonological input lexicon. However, it remains an impairment with limited clinical documentation in the literature.Aims This case-report presents the assessment and the initial treatment stage of a patient with Wernicke’s aphasia, whose comprehension deficits are identified as word-form deafness. The study aimed to examine whether a theoretically motivated treatment targeting the impaired phonological input lexicon would lead to improvement in auditory comprehension at the lexical level.Methods & Procedures A treatment plan with two matching tasks (spoken/written word and spoken word/picture) was designed to target the impaired phonological input lexicon. We measured the efficacy of the treatment through a pre-/post-assessment with the Greek version of BDAE.Outcomes & Results The treatment plan had positive outcomes for our patient’s auditory comprehension at the lexical level that cannot be attributed to spontaneous recovery.Conclusions The main contribution of this study is two-fold: First, we shed light on word-form deafness, which has been questioned due to its limited clinical documentation in the literature. Second, we suggest an evidence-based treatment targeting auditory comprehension difficulties at the lexical level.