Differential effects of covert and overt training of the syntactical component of verbal number processing and generalisations to other tasks: A single-case study

Abstract We report on the significant beneficial outcomes of two contrasted experimental rehabilitation techniques for grammaticality judgements operating on numbers in written word forms (verbal numbers). The information processing approach provided the theoretical framework for designing training programmes. The verbal primitives were classified into lexical categories (units, teens, decades, and hundreds). A set of lexico-syntactical rules was stated in terms of well-formed or illegal sequences of categories. Grammaticality judgement was simulated by a left-to-right parser performing the lexical categorization of verbal number primitives and operating with the relevant acceptance/rejection syntactical rules. In Therapy I, neither rules nor lexical categorization were taught to the patient, who was just presented with many verbal numbers in a grammaticality judgement task on a video screen. Automatic feedback to the patient qualified only the nature of his responses (correct or errors). In Therapy II, t...