Improved single-letter identification after whole-word training in pure alexia.
Neuropsychol Rehabil
; 19(3): 340-63, 2009 Jun.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-19191066
ABSTRACT
Pure alexia is characterised by a very time-consuming letter-by-letter reading strategy due to an impaired identification or integration of single letters. So far, therapy interventions have addressed impaired letter identification using specific single-letter training approaches. In the present study, we report patient KA with pure alexia and letter-by-letter reading. Contrary to common approaches, we investigated whether a whole-word reading approach can be successful despite severe impairments at the level of single-letter identification. As a first step, auditory-visual verification tasks were used to familiarise the patient with the training items, which in a second step were read with limited exposure duration. After a four week intervention, KA's word reading performance improved significantly for trained and control items in terms of speed and accuracy. Although not specifically addressed during our training programme, even single-letter identification and text reading performance increased significantly. However, the patient's reading was still based on a letter-by-letter strategy.
Full text:
1
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pattern Recognition, Visual
/
Reading
/
Alexia, Pure
Type of study:
Diagnostic_studies
/
Prognostic_studies
Limits:
Humans
/
Male
/
Middle aged
Language:
En
Journal:
Neuropsychol Rehabil
Journal subject:
NEUROLOGIA
/
PSICOLOGIA
/
REABILITACAO
Year:
2009
Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Germany