Constraint-Induced Aphasia Therapy (CIAT) : effekt på en grupp individer med kronisk afasi

Abstract: Constraint-Induced Therapy (CI) is based on the theory that constraining operationalfunctions will increase the usage and at the same time the recovery of impaired functions. Constraint-Induced Aphasia Therapy (CIAT) is a variant of CI, aimed at people with chronicaphasia. The purpose of this study was to examine whether CIAT would affect the linguisticabilities of eleven individuals with chronic aphasia. The linguistic abilities of each participant were tested before and after the therapy which consisted of thirty hours intensive trainingduring two weeks in accordance with CIAT. Abilities that were examined included namingability, informative speech, listening comprehension and everyday use of language. Measurements of the participants’ length of utterances and speech-rate were also implemented. The test results were analyzed using Wilcoxon signed ranks tests and dependent t-tests. Significant improvements were ascertained in the areas of length ofutterances, naming ability and informative speech. The conclusion of the study was that CIAT has a positive effect on individuals suffering from chronic aphasia, in regards tospeech production. It is unclear whether the method has any effect on language comprehension.