A Systematic Review of Phonological Components Analysis Therapy Studies for Aphasia

Brain Research Bulletin

Python, G., Durand, E., et al. (2025).

Brain Research Bulletin, 223, 111269.

<div>This systematic review explores the effects of phonological component analysis (PCA) for people with stroke-associated aphasia. Treatment and participant-related characteristics and their impact on immediate and long-term outcomes are explored.&nbsp;</div>

No funding received

2008 to 2024

<div>Published, experimental studies</div>

13

<div>PCA therapy, a type of word-finding treatment, improved outcomes for individuals with chronic (i.e., at least 6 months) post-stroke aphasia. Specific findings included:</div> <div> <ul> <li><strong>Treated items: </strong>Effect sizes for treated items were, on average, medium to large (ES = 8.96). There was an overall small treatment effect for maintenance (ES = 4.96) and generalization (ES = 4.52) of these gains.</li> <li><strong>Standardized picture naming tasks: </strong>Fifty-seven percent (35/61) of participants demonstrated improved performance on standardized picture naming tasks.</li> <li><strong>Discourse-level tasks: </strong>Forty-four percent (8/18) of participants demonstrated generalization to measures such as total number of utterances, mean length of utterance, or total main number of concepts.</li> <li><strong>Semantic memory:&nbsp;</strong>One study reported that 75% (6/8) of participants demonstrated generalization to the Persian Pyramids and Palm Trees test.&nbsp;</li> <li><strong>Quality of life (QoL):&nbsp;</strong>Eighteen percent (7/38) of participants demonstrated improvements in QoL following PCA treatment. Of note, all significant improvements were reported through proxy-rated QoL measures while non-significant findings were reported for self-reported or assisted self-reported measures.&nbsp;</li> <li><strong>Treatment dosage:&nbsp;</strong>No clear effect of treatment dosage emerged.&nbsp;</li> <li><strong>Telepractice:&nbsp;</strong>Two studies reported significant improvements following PCA treatment delivered via telepractice (total sample = 12).&nbsp;</li> <li><strong>Treatment content: </strong>The authors were unable to identify the key ingredients driving improvements for participants.</li> <li><strong>Neural imaging: </strong>PCA therapy was associated with changes in neural activation, however, these changes did not always correspond with changes in performance.&nbsp;</li> </ul> <div>Limitations to this review include a rather homogenous sample (e.g., 75% of participants had Broca's or anomic aphasia, all participants were at least six month post-stroke), small sample sizes, heterogeneity between studies regarding service delivery (e.g., dosage, frequency, intensity), and potential test-retest effects for trained items. Additional research is indicated.&nbsp;</div> </div>