Effects of Gesture Plus Verbal Treatment (GVT) in Cantonese Speakers With Aphasia

The treatment effects on naming will be assessed through verbal naming and gesture production using the black and white drawing naming task. Responses will be counted as correct if they can be identified by the rater as the target word in verbal naming and convey the depicted concept through gesture production, even if the articulation or hand and arm movements are slightly distorted.

The Cantonese Aphasia Battery was conducted to evaluate improvements in various linguistic measures (e.g., question comprehension, step commands, repetition, etc.). The minimum and maximum values are 0 and 100, respectively, with higher scores indicating a better outcome.

The Comprehensive Aphasia Test will be conducted to evaluate improvements in various cognitive and linguistic measures (e.g., semantic memory, word fluency, auditory comprehension, etc.). There are different subtests in the assessment, with a minimum value of 0, and maximum values ranging from 70 to 130, with higher scores indicating a better outcome.

The Cantonese Boston Naming Test will be conducted to evaluate the generalization effects on naming ability. The minimum and maximum values are 0 and 30, respectively, with higher scores indicating a better outcome.

Discourse samples were collected from participants through various monologues. The discourse elicitation tasks included Main concept analysis, procedural (Ham and Egg Sandwich), narrative (Telling of the story "Tortoise and Hare"), and personal narrative (Sharing of an important event). This will help in assessing their word retrieval abilities at both the sentence and discourse levels, and their verbal and non-verbal communication skills in realistic contexts. Regarding discourse assessment, all samples will be video recorded using a camera. After that, the samples will undergo discourse analysis based on Chinese Linguistics Communication Measures, where conversational speech will be transcribed, and the linguistic index will be calculated and compared. Finally, the number of various types of gestures will also be computed and compared.

Improvements in functional communication will be evaluated using the Functional Assessment of Communication Skills questionnaire. There are different subtests in the assessment, with minimum values of 0, and maximum values ranging from 35 to 147, with higher scores indicating a better outcome.