Abstract Details

Title Behavioral Evidence for Continued Language Recovery in Chronic Post-stroke Aphasia

Topic Cerebrovascular Disease and Interventional Neurology

Presentation(s) S31 - Stroke Risk Factors, Outcomes, and Prevention (5:06 PM-5:18 PM)

Poster/Presentation
Number 009

Objective To determine whether individuals with aphasia due to left-hemisphere (LH) stroke continue to show measurable gains in language abilities in the chronic phase of recovery (>6 months post-stroke), and to identify which behavioral domains demonstrate the most robust late recovery.

Background Aphasia recovery following LH stroke is traditionally assumed to plateau after six months post-stroke, but growing evidence suggests that improvement may continue well into the chronic phase. Few studies have examined within-subject behavioral change in long-term survivors or tested predictors of continued recovery. The few longitudinal behavioral studies in the chronic phase have examined global recovery using the Western Aphasia Battery Aphasia Quotient (WAB-AQ), leaving domain-specific changes in reading and language largely unexplored.

Design/Methods Twenty-four adults with chronic LH stroke (mean time-since-stroke at baseline= 56.4 months, mean age at stroke = 53.8 years) completed behavioral assessments at two timepoints (mean interval = 30 months), including the WAB, Written Lexical Decision, Oral Word Reading, Oral Pseudoword Reading, Real-Word Repetition, and Pseudoword Repetition. Paired t-tests examined change over time for each behavioral measure. Pearson correlations examined whether change scores (Δ=T₂-T₁) were associated with age at stroke, years of education, time since stroke at baseline (months), lesion volume, and interval between timepoints.

Results Participants showed significant improvement in overall language ability (WAB-AQ (t(23)=-3.14, p=.005), oral real-word reading accuracy (t(23)=-2.68, p=.013), oral pseudoword reading accuracy (t(22)=-2.86,p=.009), real word repetition (t(21)=-3.50,p=.002) and pseudoword repetition (t(20)=-2.70,p=.014). Change in WAB-AQ scores (r=-0.442, p=0.035) and pseudoword repetition accuracy (r=-0.551, p=.01) were negatively correlated with time-since-stroke at baseline (i.e., more improvement with earlier first timepoint after stroke).

Conclusions These findings provide preliminary evidence that aphasia can continue to improve during the chronic stage of stroke recovery, challenging the traditional plateau model. Gains across phonological and lexical-semantic tasks suggest that recovery extends across multiple domains of language processing, even in the chronic phase.

Authors/Disclosures
Elizabeth H. Chang PRESENTER	Ms. Chang has nothing to disclose.
Alycia Laks, SLP	Ms. Laks has nothing to disclose.
Andrew T. DeMarco, PhD, CCC-SLP (Georgetown University)	Dr. DeMarco has nothing to disclose.
Peter Turkeltaub, MD, PhD (Georgetown University)	Dr. Turkeltaub has nothing to disclose.

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