| This study assessed the effects of speech production and linguistic content on the auditory comprehension abilities of people with aphasia. 20 participants, 10 with expressive aphasia and 10 healthy comparison peers were presented with 48 sentences from the Revised-Speech Perception in Noise Test (R-SPIN) (Bilger, Nuetzel, Rabinowitz, & Rzeczkowski, 1984). These sentences were recorded using specific parameters including: clear speech/high predictability, clear speech/low predictability, conversational speech/high predictability, and conversational speech/low predictability. Each sentence was presented individually, followed by a set of four pictures. Participants were asked to select the picture that best represented the last word of the sentence they heard. Results indicated that all participants demonstrated significant improvement on the task when listening to clear speech, and the group of people with aphasia demonstrated significant improvement with highly predictable sentences. Further investigation could examine the effects of background noise and more complex stimuli and their effects on auditory comprehension. |
