Naming facilitation therapy how many words can be learned this way?

Background: Facilitation therapy has been shown to result in improvements in picture naming as a result of repeated presentation of stimuli. In aphasic subjects greater accuracy is seen (Howard et al 1985) and for non aphasic subjects faster responses (Wheldon and Monsell 1992). The mechanism of therapy is thought to be repetition priming, which increases the connection between the meaning and the lexical form of the word. This should show no recency or primacy effects. The average number of treated words in facilitation therapy is 30-40 words (Snell et al 2010). This study aimed to add to a previous study by Kelly (2012) which showed a significant improvement for an aphasic participant with a large set of words (n=500). Objectives: This study aims to investigate the following; Is facilitation therapy successful for a large number of words (n=500). Is repetition priming the mechanism of therapy; do the participants show primacy or recency effects. Methods: All five participants with anomia were sourced from HSE clinics and met specific selection criteria. Therapy consisted of two 30 minute sessions per week for five weeks. A total of 500 words were covered. Four facilitations per target using errorless learning. Results: There was no overall group effect. Participant MOB showed a small but statistically significant improvement on the treated items from pre therapy (227/500) to post therapy assessment (270/500). No significant change was shown within the control items and no recency or primacy effect was present. Conclusions: This suggests a repetition priming mechanism for the facilitation therapy and success with a large set of treated words (n=500).