| Within the first several months post onset of aphasia, the clinical aphasiologist is frequently faced with the responsibility of making critical decisions concerning several aspects of patient care. He recommends whether treatment will be beneficial for that person, develops realistic therapy goals, and sometimes formulates defensible requests for treatment funding. A practical means to predict achievement potentials of aphasic individuals is needed in order to provide a data base for these early clinical decisions. However, patterns of progress for aphasic people in treatment and methods for predicting later performance scores have been virtually unstudied by aphasiologists.;Five men, diagnosed as aphasic, participated in the study. Two to four treatment tasks were designed for each subject according to his personal communicative deficits and needs. Treatment was applied to each of the sixteen tasks for twenty-eight sessions. Twenty-eight performance scores were obtained for all tasks and they were arranged chronologically on a graph.;The quarter intersect method of estimating and predicting trend was applied and the data were described according to trend, variability, and predictability. Some possible reasons for unsuccessful predictions are proposed and discussed with some suggestions for resolving them in the future. In addition, some data are presented as preliminary normative base for describing slope, average difference between consecutive scores, range of expected scores, and amount of base data needed for accurate predictions. Replication and further study are warranted to corroborate or challenge these findings.;The objective of this study primarily was to collect descriptive data reflecting reacquisition rates for selected language tasks, to describe the data in terms of selected characteristics, and to determine the usefulness of early aphasia treatment data in predicting later performance scores. A secondary concern of the study was to determine whether the suggested method of estimating trend (quarter intersect method) was statistically accurate in its estimations; and it was found to be accurate. |
