It suggests that therapy for aphasia should be individualized according to which functional components are impaired in a given patient, and which are spared. At Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute, my colleagues and I are researching whether this approach to therapy is practical and gives good results. This is one of the many ways that Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute fulfills its mission to conduct research that is of theoretical interest and that is relevant to how rehabilitation is practiced. Research in my laboratory continues to focus on how language functions are represented in the intact brain and how these functions are disrupted in individuals with aphasia. In studying how to treat disorders of word retrieval, sentence production, and so on, I have been impressed with the specificity of the learning that takes place, that is, how little generalization occurs to non-treated tasks and novel material.
Naturalistic action is action in the service of practical goals like grooming or meal preparation.
As in the case of speech, naturalistic action in non-brain injured adults takes place so effortlessly that it is easy to underestimate the complexity of the cognitive operations that the brain must perform. Our studies have highlighted the role that attention plays in organizing naturalistic action. We have developed a clinical test of naturalistic action and are in the process of assessing how well this test, when administered acutely, predicts later performance in the discharge setting. Selected Publications Schwartz, MF, Montgomery, MW, Buxbaum, LJ, Lee, SS, Carew, TG, Coslett, HC, Ferraro, M, Fitzpatrick-DeSalme, E, Hart, T, Mayer, N. Naturalistic action impairment in closed head injury. Lexical access in aphasic and non-aphasic speakers.