Compensation and language recovery in the chronic aphasic patient

Two chronic fluent aphasic patients were assessed on a range of standard, functional and linguistic measures at a testing interval of five years. Though no change was noted in the performance of either patient on the standard test, a shift was seen in both patients in functional communication and on certain syntactic and pragmatic dimensions. These shifts were interpreted within a framework of compensatory strategies. Certain processes common to both patients and related to increased communicative effectiveness are described and discussed. The chronic patient is viewed as an individual with potential for dynamic functional language change in certain aspects of communication not directly linked to the structural components of the message. Implications for therapy are discussed.