Can Prosody Help Patients with Broca’s Aphasia Regain their Communication Skills?

ΑΝΑΓΝΩΣΗ (ελληνικά) READ ΕΚΤΥΠΩΣΗ (ελληνικά) PRINT
Published: Dec 13, 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/pixelsh.31630
Maria Martzoukou
Abstract

Although aphasia is a very common disorder, the neural processes that influence recovery continue to be unknown. As a result, still there are no specific, widely accepted aphasia therapies. Therapies based on prosodic-musical elements of speech, however, have been characterized as promising. Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT) is one of the most well-known treatment methods based on pitch and rhythm, which was developed to increase verbal output in adults with non-fluent aphasia. Although, MIT has been adapted to several languages (French, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish), in Greece it is almost unknown.


The aim of the proposed study was twofold: to adapt the MIT to Greek and to conduct an experimental study, examining the effect of MIT in Greek patients with Broca’s aphasia.


To this aim, after the translation and adaptation of the MIT treatment to Greek, 2 patients with Broca’s aphasia took part in the present study. The results from both the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination and the SPECT, before the treatment, just after the treatment, and three months after the completion of the MIT, revealed impressive improvement for both patients. Therefore MIT seems to be a promising intervention program for patients with Broca’s aphasia.

Article Details
  • Section
  • Articles
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Author Biography
Maria Martzoukou

Dr. Maria Martzoukou has studied Greek Philology with a specialization in Linguistics at the University of Patras. She continued her studies in the field of Psycholinguistics-Neurolinguistics at the University of Essex (UK) from which she graduated with distinction. She completed her doctoral research in the same field (Psycholinguistics-Neurolinguistics) at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Her doctorate research on “Sentence Processing: Syntax-Prosody Interface” was funded by the scholarship Heraclitus II and was evaluated with distinction. Postdoctoral research of hers has been funded by Research Centre for the Humanities and IKY.

Since 2009 she has collaborated with various public and private tertiary educational institutions. From 2014 she is an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Speech and Language Therapy at the University of Ioannina and from 2016 she teaches at the postgraduate program “Education Sciences: Special Education and Education of People with Speaking and Writing Difficulties” of the Hellenic Open University.

Her research interests are related to the examination of the ability of several populations to produce and comprehend prosody and the possibility of using prosody both as a means of diagnosis (among others) and as a means of intervention. She also explores sentence processing and first/second language acquisition by (a)typical populations.

She has several publications on conference proceedings and academic journals.

References
Albert, Martin L., Robert W. Sparks και Nancy A. Helm. «Melodic Intonation Therapy for Aphasia». Archives of Νeurology 29, τχ. 2 (1973): 130-131.
Baker, Felicity A. «Modifying the Melodic Intonation Therapy Program for Adults with Severe Non-fluent Aphasia». Music Therapy Perspectives 18, τχ. 2 (2000): 110-114.
Breier, Joshua I., Randle Shannon, Maher M. Lynn και Papanicolaou C. Andrew. «Changes in Maps of Language Activity Activation following Melodic Intonation Therapy using Magnetoencephalography: Two Case Studies». Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology 32, τχ. 3 (2010): 309-314.
Cortese, Maria D., Riganello Francesco, Francesco Arcuri, Pignataro L. Maria και Iolanda Buglione. «Rehabilitation of Aphasia: Application of Melodic-Rhythmic Therapy to Italian Language». Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9, τχ. 520 (2015): 1-8.
da Fontoura, Denise Ren, Jaqueline de Carvalho Rodrigues, Lenisa Brandão, Ana Maria Monção και Jerusa Fumagalli de Salles. «Eficácia da Terapia da Entonação Melódica Adaptada: Estudo de Caso de Paciente com Afasia de Broca». Distúrbios da Comunicação 26, τχ. 4 (2014): 641-655.
Gerstman, Hubert L. «A Case of Aphasia». Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders 29, τχ. 1 (1964): 89-91.
Goldfarb, Robert και Ellen Bader. «Espousing Melodic Intonation Therapy in Aphasia Rehabilitation: A Case Study». International Journal of Rehabilitation Research 2, τχ. 3 (1979): 333-342.
Haro-Martínez, Ana María, Victoria Eugenia García-Concejero, Amparo López Ramos, Enedina Maté-Arribas, José López-Táppero, Genny Lubrini, Exuperio Díez-Tejedor και Blanca Fuentes. «Adaptation of Melodic Intonation Therapy to Spanish: A Feasibility Pilot Study». Aphasiology 31, τχ. 11 (2017): 1333-1343.
Hébert, Sylvie, Amelie Racette, Lise Gagnon και Isabelle Peretz. «Revisiting the Dissociation between Singing and Speaking in Expressive Aphasia». Brain 126, τχ. 8 (2003): 1838-1850.
Helm-Estabrooks, Nancy, Marjorie Nicholas και Albert Morgan. MIT – Melodic Intonation Therapy: Manual. Ώστιν, Τέξας: Pro-Ed., 1989.
Hough, Monica Strauss. «Melodic Intonation Therapy and Aphasia: Another Variation on a Theme». Aphasiology 24, τχ. 6-8 (2010): 775-786.
Κοσμίδου, Μαρία-Ελένη και Χριστίνα Ελένη Βλάχου. Δοκιμασία Προσωδίας. Θεσσαλονίκη: Εργαστήριο Νευροψυχολογίας, Τμήμα Ψυχολογίας, Αριστοτέλειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θεσσαλονίκης, 2001.
Lazar, Ronald M., Brandon Minzer, Daniel Antoniello, Joanne R. Festa, John W. Krakauer και Randolph S. Marshall. «Improvement in Aphasia Scores after Stroke is Well Predicted by Initial Severity». Stroke 41, τχ. 7 (2010): 1485-1488.
Μαρτζούκου, Μαρία. «Θεραπεία του μελωδικού επιτονισμού: Μετάφραση και προσαρμογή στην ελληνική γλώσσα». Journal of Applied Linguistics 34 (2021): 101-129, https://ejournals.lib.auth.gr/jal/article/view/8521.
Martzoukou, Maria, Anastasia Nousia, Grigorios Nasios και Spyridon Tsiouris. «Adaptation of Melodic Intonation Therapy to Greek: A Clinical Study in Broca’s Aphasia with Brain Perfusion SPECT Validation». Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience (2021): 433. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2021.664581.
Μεσσήνης, Λάμπρος, Ευγενία Παναγέα, Παναγιώτης Παπαθανασόπουλος και Ανδρέας Καστελλάκης. Διαγνωστική εξέταση της Βοστώνης για την αφασία – Συνοπτική ελληνική μορφή. Πάτρα: Gotsis, 2013.
Racette, Amélie, Céline Bard και Isabelle Peretz. «Making Non-fluent Aphasics Speak: Sing Along!». Brain 129, τχ. 10 (2006): 2571-2584.
Sparks, Robert. «Melodic Intonation Therapy». Στο Language Intervention Strategies in Adult Aphasia, επιμέλεια R. Chapey, 837-851. 5η έκδ. Βαλτιμόρη: Williams & Wilkins, 2008.
Sparks, Robert, Nancy Helm και Martin Albert. «Aphasia Rehabilitation Resulting from Melodic Intonation Therapy». Cortex 10, τχ. 4 (1974): 303-316.
Stahl, Benjamin, Ilona Henseler, Robert Turner, Stefan Geyer και Sonja A. Kotz. «How to Engage the Right Brain Hemisphere in Aphasics without even Singing: Evidence for Two Paths of Speech Recovery». Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 7 (2013): 35.
Tabei, Ken-ichi, Masayuki Satoh, Chizuru Nakano, Ai Ito, Yasuo Shimoji, Hirotaka Kida, Hajime Samuka και Hidekazu Tomimoto. «Improved Neural Processing Efficiency in a Chronic Aphasia Patient Following Melodic Intonation Therapy: A Neuropsychological and Functional MRI Study». Frontiers in Neurology 7 (2016): 148.
Turkeltaub, Peter E. «Brain Stimulation and the Role of the Right Hemisphere in Aphasia Recovery». Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports 15, τχ. 11 (2015): 72.
van de Sandt-Koenderman, Mieke W. M. E., Carolina P. Mendez Orellana, Ineke van der Meulen, Marion Smits και Ribbers M. Gerard. «Language Lateralisation after Melodic Intonation Therapy: An fMRI Study in Subacute and Chronic Aphasia». Aphasiology 32, τχ. 7 (2018): 765-783.
Van Eeckhout, Philippe και Bhatt P. «Rythme, intonation, accentuation: la rééducation des aphasies non fluentes sévères in Rythme et intonation dans l’évocation du langage». Rééducation Orthophonique Paris 22, τχ. 138 (1984): 311-327.
Wilson, Sarah J., Kate Parsons και David C. Reutens. «Preserved Singing in Aphasia: A Case Study of the Efficacy of Melodic Intonation Therapy». Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal 24, τχ. 1 (2006): 23-36.
Wu Cheng, Qin Yingyi, Lin Zhen, Yi Xiyan, Wei Xin, Ruan Yiming και He Jia. «Prevalence and Impact of Aphasia among Patients Admitted with Acute Ischemic Stroke». Journal of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Diseases 29, τχ. 5 (2020): 104764.
Zipse, Lauryn, Andrea Norton, Sarah Marchina και Schlaug Gottfried. «When Right is All That is Left: Plasticity of Right‐hemisphere Tracts in a Young Aphasic Patient». Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1252, τχ. 1 (2012): 237-245.
Zumbansen, Anna, Isabelle Peretz και Sylvie Hébert. «The Combination of Rhythm and Pitch Can Account for the Beneficial Effect of Melodic Intonation Therapy on Connected Speech Improvements in Broca’s Aphasia». Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8 (2014): 592.