Sentence Training for Aphasia

Overseen By Jiyeon Lee

Age: 18+

Sex: Any

Trial Phase: Academic

Sponsor: Purdue University

Disqualifiers: Severe apraxia, Dementia, Uncontrolled psychiatric, others

No Placebo Group All trial participants will receive the active study treatment (no placebo)

Compensation: Varies

Number of Visits: 3

Duration: Up to 15 sessions

104 Participants Needed

What You Need to Know Before You Apply

What is the purpose of this trial?

This trial aims to find the best way to help people with aphasia, a condition that often follows a stroke and makes forming and understanding sentences difficult. Researchers will use Sentence Production Training (also known as Implicit Structural Priming Therapy), which involves repeating and creating sentences to determine the most effective methods. Participants will attend several sessions to test different approaches. Ideal participants are native English speakers who experienced a left hemisphere stroke over six months ago, have difficulty communicating in sentences, but can still use words independently. As an unphased trial, this study offers participants the chance to contribute to groundbreaking research in aphasia treatment.

Do I need to stop my current medications for the trial?

The trial information does not specify whether you need to stop taking your current medications. It's best to discuss this with the trial coordinators or your doctor.

What prior data suggests that this treatment is safe for sentence production and comprehension in aphasia?

Research has shown that sentence production training, using a method called implicit structural priming, is generally safe for people with aphasia. In past studies, participants engaged in organized sessions where they repeated and created sentences, and no major negative effects were reported. For example, one study found that participants improved their sentence-making skills without significant side effects.

Although these studies don't mention harmful reactions, it's important to remember that treatments can affect people differently. However, current research suggests that this type of training is safe for most participants. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

Why are researchers excited about this trial?

Researchers are excited about the Sentence Production Training for aphasia because it taps into the brain's natural ability to adapt and reorganize through a technique called structural priming. Unlike traditional speech therapy, which often relies on repetitive language exercises, this method focuses on helping the brain form new sentence patterns by repeating and manipulating sentences. By engaging patients in active sentence creation and recall over multiple sessions, this approach aims to enhance communication skills more effectively, potentially offering quicker and more sustainable improvements in sentence production for people with aphasia.

What evidence suggests that Sentence Production Training might be an effective treatment for aphasia?

Research shows that implicit structural priming, which participants in this trial will receive, can help people with aphasia improve their sentence formation. Studies have found that those who received this training improved in making and remembering both practiced and new sentences. The treatment involves repeating and creating different sentences, which strengthens language skills. Participants in these studies demonstrated improved sentence-making and understanding after the training. Overall, evidence suggests that structural priming can significantly enhance language abilities for people with aphasia. ^{1 2 6 7 8}

Who Is on the Research Team?

Jiyeon Lee, PhD

Principal Investigator

Purdue University

Are You a Good Fit for This Trial?

This trial is for English-speaking adults who had a stroke in the left hemisphere of their brain at least 6 months ago, causing aphasia. They should have completed high school and have normal or corrected vision and hearing. Participants must struggle with forming sentences but can use some words independently. Those with uncontrolled mental health issues, substance abuse, severe speech apraxia, or other neurological conditions affecting communication cannot join.

Inclusion Criteria

High-school educated

It's hard for you to talk in full sentences, and you can only say some words by themselves.

It has been over 6 months since I had a stroke affecting my left side.

Exclusion Criteria

You currently have a problem with alcohol or drugs.

I have severe difficulty speaking clearly.

You have other conditions that affect how you communicate, like dementia.

Timeline for a Trial Participant

Screening

Participants are screened for eligibility to participate in the trial

2-4 weeks

Treatment

Participants undergo structural priming training sessions to improve sentence production and comprehension

Up to 15 sessions

3 sessions for experiments 1-3, up to 15 sessions for experiment 4

Follow-up

Participants are monitored for improvements in sentence production and comprehension post-treatment

Up to 2 months

What Are the Treatments Tested in This Trial?

Interventions

• Sentence Production Training

Trial Overview

The study is testing a new method to improve sentence formation and understanding in people with aphasia using 'implicit priming'. Researchers will first identify the most effective priming conditions for learning enhancement before developing and evaluating a novel treatment based on these initial findings.

How Is the Trial Designed?

Group I: Structural priming training Experimental Treatment 1 Intervention

Participants will be enrolled in 3 sessions of structural priming training (for experiment 1-3) or up to 15 treatment sessions (for experiment 4). Each session will be about 2 hour long, consisting of a set of tasks, including repeating, making, and remembering various types of sentences. In experiment 1-3, each participant will receive two different experimental priming conditions that are being compared within each session. In experiment 4, participants will receive a structural priming treatment in a single-subject design.

Who Is Running the Clinical Trial?

Purdue University

Lead Sponsor

Trials

239

Recruited

72,200+

Temple University

Collaborator

Trials

321

Recruited

89,100+

University of California, San Diego

Collaborator

Trials

1,215

Recruited

1,593,000+

Published Research Related to This Trial

In a study involving 17 persons with aphasia (PWAs) and 20 healthy older adults, abstract structural priming was found to effectively enhance syntactic production in PWAs both immediately and over time, indicating a potential therapeutic approach for grammatical deficits.

Unlike healthy older adults, PWAs did not benefit from verb-specific (lexical) priming, suggesting that while they can still learn and use abstract structures, their ability to leverage specific verbs for enhanced priming is impaired.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Effects of Verb Overlap on Structural Priming in Dialogue: Implications for Syntactic Learning in Aphasia. Man, G., Meehan, S., Martin, N., et al.[2023]

Agrammatic aphasic speakers can generate structural representations during sentence production, similar to unimpaired speakers, indicating that their ability to form sentence structures is intact despite their language deficits.

Both agrammatic and unimpaired speakers showed lasting effects of structural priming, suggesting that structural priming could be a useful therapeutic approach for improving sentence production in individuals with agrammatic aphasia.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Grammatical Encoding and Learning in Agrammatic Aphasia: Evidence from Structural Priming. Cho-Reyes, S., Mack, JE., Thompson, CK.[2020]

TelePriming, a collaborative structural priming task delivered via videoconferencing, effectively facilitated sentence production in persons with aphasia (PWA) and older adults, showing that they produced more passive sentences after hearing passive primes.

The study found that TelePriming resulted in larger priming effects for PWA and older adults compared to in-person sessions, indicating that remote delivery does not diminish the effectiveness of this treatment method and enhances comfort with technology.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

TelePriming sentence production in aphasia. Lee, J., Keen, AD., Farr, E., et al.[2023]

In a study involving 11 persons with aphasia (PWA) and 20 healthy older adults (HOA), it was found that lexical priming significantly influenced off-line sentence production in PWA, particularly for those with better-preserved syntactic processing.

While HOA demonstrated immediate word-driven production in both off-line and real-time measures, PWA showed a delay in preferential eye fixations to the primed character, indicating atypical sentence planning despite successful off-line production.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Effect of lexical accessibility on syntactic production in aphasia: An eyetracking study. Lee, J.[2022]

Eighteen individuals with aphasia (PWA) showed preserved structural priming effects during sentence comprehension, indicating that they can benefit from this technique to improve their understanding of syntactically ambiguous sentences.

The study found that PWA and healthy older adults both exhibited structural priming effects even after a delay, suggesting that this form of priming can facilitate longer-lasting improvements in sentence interpretation, although it did not rely on specific verb information.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Priming sentence comprehension in aphasia: Effects of lexically independent and specific structural priming. Lee, J., Hosokawa, E., Meehan, S., et al.[2023]

In a study involving five participants with nonfluent aphasia, it was found that they produced sentences more accurately when starting with high-frequency nouns, indicating that lexical retrieval speed significantly impacts their sentence production.

The nonfluent participants struggled more with sentences containing semantically related nouns, suggesting they rely heavily on activated concepts to form sentences, which supports the 'content drives structure' (COST) hypothesis.

NCBI (Pubmed)

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

What's in a sentence? The crucial role of lexical content in sentence production in nonfluent aphasia. Speer, P., Wilshire, CE.[2018]

Citations

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Implicit structural priming as a treatment component for ...

This study applies implicit structural priming as a novel treatment for sentence production in persons with aphasia (PWA), investigating the learning mechanism ...

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Implicit structural priming as a treatment component for aphasia

This study applies implicit structural priming as a novel treatment for sentence production in persons with aphasia (PWA), investigating the learning mechanism ...

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clinicaltrials.gov

clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05415501?term=AREA%5BConditionSearch%5D(aphasia)&rank=4

NCT05415501 | Sentence Production Training in Aphasia

This project focuses on developing a novel treatment for sentence production and comprehension in aphasia, using implicit priming. First set of experiments ...

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pubs.asha.org

pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2025_AJSLP-25-00095

Structural Priming Treatment in Aphasia: The Role of ...

In this study, we aimed to (a) further validate whether structural priming is an effective treatment for sentence production deficits in aphasia ...

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researchgate.net

researchgate.net/publication/390469493_Implicit_structural_priming_as_a_treatment_component_for_aphasia_Specifying_essential_learning_conditions

Implicit structural priming as a treatment component for ...

Both groups showed significantly improved production and maintenance of trained and untrained target sentences in both training conditions.

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tandfonline.com

tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02687038.2025.2530572

a randomised control trial of a usage-based intervention

Measuring outcomes of sentence production therapy ... Language recovery in aphasia following implicit structural priming training: A case study.

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The Efficacy of Structural Priming in the Production ...

For the untrained sentences, the mean score increased from zero at baseline to 0.83 after treatment. During the withdrawal phase, S.M. showed a ...

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researchgate.net/publication/375601638_TelePriming_sentence_production_in_aphasia

(PDF) TelePriming sentence production in aphasia

In Study 2, when controlling for demographic information (age, education) and aphasia severity, TelePriming resulted in larger priming effects ...