When someone suffers a stroke, traumatic brain injury, or brain tumor, one of the common symptoms is aphasia, a disorder that arises from damage to portions of the brain, usually the left side, that are responsible for language. It impairs the expression and understanding of language as well as reading and writing.
About 1 million people in the United States currently have aphasia, and nearly 180,000 Americans acquire it each year, according to the National Aphasia Association. But, there is not a consensus in the medical community on how to best provide rehabilitation for those afflicted with the disorder.
With a five-year, $2.4 million grant recently awarded from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers from 麻豆精选 and the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute (MRRI) in Philadelphia will conduct a series of studies to develop a theory of learning needed to advance aphasia rehabilitation.
Katherine Rawson, Ph.D., professor of psychology in Kent State鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences, is co-investigator and director of a sub-award of $476,000 under the grant from the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) entitled 鈥淩etrieval Practice Principles: A theory of learning for Aphasia Rehabilitation.鈥 This is a multi-site project, led by Erica Middleton, Ph.D., of the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute.
鈥淭he project takes a novel approach to aphasia rehabilitation that promises to improve naming in people with aphasia,鈥 said Maria Zaragoza, Ph.D., chairperson of Kent State鈥檚 Department of Psychological Sciences. 鈥淭he groundbreaking aspect of this project is that it takes research from the fields of psychology and education and applies it to the therapeutic context.鈥
With this new grant, researchers will try to define what types of people with aphasia benefit from retrieval practice-based naming treatments (versus other treatments) and what cognitive-linguistic characteristics predict such differential benefit. They will also apply retrieval practice principles to treat people with comprehension deficits, and develop a theoretical account of how and why retrieval practice principles impact naming.
Rawson has been systematically investigating the learning techniques of retrieval practice (i.e., the 鈥渨hat to do鈥) and distributed practice (i.e., the 鈥渨hen to do it鈥) for more than 10 years. Her previous work had largely been focused on enhancing student learning outcomes, with a particular eye toward improving the durability and efficiency of student learning.
Several years ago, Middleton and Rawson started exploring the application of these learning techniques in a new domain鈥攁phasia rehabilitation.
鈥淥utcomes of our earlier, smaller-scale studies were quite promising and led to the larger-scale research that we鈥檒l be pursuing in this funded project to further investigate and explain the potent effects of distributed retrieval practice in the context of aphasia rehabilitation,鈥 Rawson said.
鈥淲e know that every act of speech is an act of learning,鈥 Middleton said. 鈥淏y better understanding how and why that is, we believe this research program can make existing aphasia treatments more principled and effective.鈥
To learn more, go to
To learn more about Rawson鈥檚 research, visit her laboratory web site.
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Photo Caption:
Katherine Rawson, Ph.D., professor of psychology in Kent State鈥檚 College of Arts and Sciences and the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute (MRRI) in Philadelphia will conduct a series of studies to develop a theory of learning needed to advance aphasia rehabilitation.
Media Contacts:
Kerry O鈥機onnor, OConnKer@einstein.edu, 203-581-4192
Jim Maxwell, jmaxwel2@kent.edu, 330-672-8028
Kristin Anderson, kander63@kent.edu, 330-672-7907