Treatment of agrammatism in oral and written production in patients with Broca’s aphasia The use of implicit and explicit learning

Several approaches to the rehabilitation of agrammatism use implicit and explicit learning methods. OBJECTIVE: To verify the effect of adapted Mapping Therapy and ORLA methods (explicit versus implicit learning) on the oral and written production in spontaneous language among agrammatic patients with Broca’s aphasia. METHODS: Six individuals were submitted to Mapping Therapy and ORLA (Oral Reading for Language in Aphasia) treatments. Samples of oral and written production from a picture description task were compared pre and post-treatment. RESULTS: In Mapping Therapy, the patients presented better performance after the training for the variables related to written production: number of words, nouns, verbs, closed-class words, and number of complete sentences. Regarding oral output, the patients had similar performance before and after the therapeutic process. In ORLA, the patients presented a significant difference before and after the therapeutic process in the variables related to oral production, increasing the number of words, number of verbs, and speech rate. There was no difference in pre and post-treatment performance in written production. CONCLUSION: Both implicit and explicit learning can be used in the treatment of agrammatism. Mapping Therapy was more effective for the treatment of agrammatism in written production, while ORLA was more effective for the agrammatism in oral production.