A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of - Queen Margaret University

methodology developed and used in the main investigation is presented in
Chapter 4 (see section 4.7) and discussed in Chapter 6 (see section 6.5).
2.10 CHAPTER SUMMARY
Aphasia has been demonstrated to have a large and negative impact on the
lives of the person with language impairment and their family and carers (see
section 2.3). Evidence suggests that the recovery process can be slow and
variable for each individual (see section 2.2.1). Although aphasia rehabilitation is
generally considered to be efficacious, the outcome of the rehabilitation process
for each person is uncertain. Some individuals recover most of their impaired
language functions while others retain severe language impairment, affecting
their communicative ability and essentially their participation in society (see
section 2.4). There is abundant evidence that the healthy adult brain continually
creates and recreates neuronal connections through each learning process it
encounters. Such cortical plasticity has also been observed in the damaged
adult brain where it has been demonstrated that individuals can relearn old
motor and sensory skills through repeated exercises specific to the injured areas
(see section 2.5.3). Higher cognitive functions have not yet been as thoroughly
researched, particularly in the realm of language rehabilitation, although there is
some evidence that cortical plasticity occurs in the recovery of language
function. There is not yet a model or complete theoretical account of aphasia
rehabilitation and it is not yet known if the process underlying language therapy
involves the re-accessing or reactivation of already held memory traces or if in
fact new learning is occurring despite speech and / or language difficulties. A
small number of studies have evaluated the ability of people with aphasia to
learn new associations between already held knowledge and new information
(e.g. already known words with abstract symbols or familiar pictures with nonwords)
(see section 2.8.5.3). However it has not yet been established if people
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