Evaluating Cognitive-Linguistic Approaches to Interventions for Aphasia within the Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS)

Abstract The Rehabilitation Treatment Specification System (RTSS; Van Stan et al., 2019) provides a framework to identify specific components of treatments developed within various rehabilitation disciplines (e.g., physical, occupational, or speech-language therapy). Furthermore, this framework offers the opportunity to identify the target and active ingredients of a therapy approach as well as the mechanism of action by which it is hypothesized to effect change in abilities or functions. In this paper, we apply the RTSS framework to the characterization of a sample of treatments for aphasia that are based on cognitive-linguistic models of language processing. Our discussion of these applications centers on the benefits of this classification system as well as additional criteria to consider when evaluating cognitive-linguistic treatments for aphasia.