A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Queen Margaret University

Rehabilitation is not thought to alter the pattern of the natural course of
restitution, but rather facilitates recovery in some patients who would otherwise
not demonstrate any improvement and accelerates it in others (Basso, 1992).
While the rehabilitation of aphasia is considered efficacious as a whole it is
effective to various degrees for each person with aphasia. As previously stated,
the aphasic population is a heterogeneous group presenting with different facets
and severity of language impairment. The extent of the effectiveness of
language rehabilitation is also variable for this population, where at one end of
the spectrum people with aphasia regain almost all pre-morbid language
abilities, others regain partial functioning and yet others regain little if any
spoken and/ or written communication following rehabilitation. In situations
where language therapy does not restore full communicative ability alternative
means of communication may be employed to enable the person to compensate
for their language impairment, such as low-tech communication boards or hightech
communication systems. However the focus of this investigation is not on
the compensation of impaired language function but rather on the restoration of
language function during the rehabilitation process. During the period of
spontaneous recovery and chronic phases of recovery following a stroke the
rehabilitation process is limited by the physical potential of the damaged brain to
recover and heal. Therefore before discussing the theoretical possibilities of
rehabilitation it is important to consider a number of factors that directly affect
the rehabilitative process as well as its limitations. The biological processes of
the brain will now be addressed considering the potential of plasticity in the adult
brain, its potential for recovery following damage and the limitations to this
recovery.
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