Experimental approaches to aphasia therapy

Abstract This paper explores ways in which contemporary research in behavioral neuroscience may be applied to treatment of language disability in aphasia. Two trends are examined independently and then mapped onto each other: the first is the neurobiologic pattern of recovery of function following brain damage; the second is the natural history of recovery from aphasia. By overlapping these two disparate sets of data, we have been able to discover biological changes following brain damage which may directly affect features of aphasia. Building on these observations, we are developing new, biologically oriented approaches to treatment of aphasia.