Case report: Applied behavior analysis in a case of anomic aphasia in post-acute myocardial infarction with cardiac arrest and brain hypoxia: results of tact-training
Online picture-naming drills can restore trained vocabulary in adults with anomic aphasia, yet untrained words stay unchanged.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Doctors worked with one adult who had anomic aphasia after cardiac arrest. The man could not name common pictures.
The team taught him to name pictures using online tact drills. Sessions happened through a computer at home.
A BCBA showed a picture, waited, then gave praise or a prompt. They tracked correct names across many sets.
What they found
After training, the man named trained pictures with 80% accuracy or better. The skill stayed strong one month later.
He did not name new, untrained pictures. Learning stayed inside the sets that were taught.
How this fits with other research
Ferguson et al. (2022) also used online tact drills, but with young autistic children taught by parents. Both studies hit high accuracy, showing telehealth tact works across ages.
Hao et al. (2021) compared online to in-person parent coaching and found equal gains. Catania’s case adds proof that the screen-only route can work even with an adult brain injury.
Madden et al. (2003) showed that saying the picture name out loud boosts later matching. Catania used the same naming response, linking old lab work to new clinical use.
Why it matters
You now have a road map for adult aphasia: run short, clear tact drills online, track each set, and expect mastery but not broad generalization. Start with pictures the client sees daily, collect cold-probe data each session, and celebrate small wins. If telehealth is the only option, you can still deliver strong, measurable naming gains.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) tact-training was provided to an adult with post-stroke anomic aphasia, with the main purposes to improve naming of pictures, with a possible generalization to another different setting, through telehealth sessions. The Multiple probe experimental design across behaviors was used. Two sets of stimuli were used (SET 1 and SET 2), including 60 laminated photos, belonging to three different categories for each set. Procedure included the baseline, the intervention phases (face-to-face and telehealth sessions), and the follow-up (1 month after the end of a tact training). For both, SET 1 and SET 2, the mastery criterion (80% correct stimulus tacts, for three consecutive times, simultaneously for all categories) was achieved. No increased percentage of correct picture tacts was found for untrained items. At follow-up, the patient provided 70 to 100% correct responses. For both SET 1 and SET 2, telehealth did not modify the correct response trends. The results of our study seem to suggest that specific tact-training procedures might be successfully carried out in adult and elderly people with post-stroke aphasia. It also appears necessary to arrange protocols providing telehealth sessions, with benefits for both families and the health system.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2024 · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1407399