Affiliations: Department of Neurology, University of Münster,
Münster, Germany | Department of Psychology, University of Münster,
Münster, Germany | Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis,
University of Münster, Münster, Germany
Note: [] Corresponding author: Caterina Breitenstein, PhD, Department of
Neurology, University of Münster, Albert-Schweitzer-Strasse 33, 48129
Münster, Germany. Tel.: +49 251 8349969; Fax: +49 251 8348181; E-mail:
caterina.breitenstein@uni-muenster.de
Abstract: Purpose: The best predictor of successful language therapy in both
the acute and chronic stages after stroke is the treatment intensity, i.e.,
number of hours trained per week. Associative learning should be particularly
suited for intense training because it places low demands on (executive)
cognitive functions. It is as of yet unresolved, however, whether associative
training is a valid language learning approach. It could merely produce
superficial associations of acoustic-visual information, which remain outside
lexical and conceptual networks. Methods: We here examined if five days
of associative training in a miniature vocabulary are sufficient for an
integration of novel words into the learner's mental lexicon. Twelve healthy
subjects were trained 20 min daily for five consecutive days simply by frequent
couplings of object pictures with novel words. Results: Correct responses
for couplings of novel words and object names increased from a chance level of
50 percent on day 1 to > 90 percent accuracy on day 5. Prior to and
immediately after the vocabulary training, a cross-modal semantic priming test
was administered to determine the degree of lexical integration of the novel
words into the language system already in situ. Conclusions: Results show
that learned novel words had acquired semantic characteristics, which were
comparable to words of subjects' native language acquired over a lifetime.
Thus, comprehensive integration of the novel words into existing conceptual and
lexical networks occurred after just five days of training. This lays the
foundation for probing associative training approaches in aphasia therapy, with
the hope of increasing therapy efficiency.
Keywords: Language acquisition, aphasia therapy, semantic priming, anomia
