This study sought to determine whether the incidence of perseveration in the responses of adult aphasics could be affected by altering stimulus factors such as semantic difficulty and the rate of presentation of stimuli. Thirty-one aphasic men supplied 1-word responses within three randomly arranged language tasks: sentence completion, picture naming, and word reading. Within each task subjects received stimuli from two 20-word lists of words contrasted for their frequency of occurrence in the language. Each list was presented once with 1-sec intervals between subjects' responses and subsequent stimuli, and once with 10-sec intervals. Results indicated that when semantic difficulty as measured by the frequency of occurrence of the single-word responses was reduced, the mean number of perseverations decreased significantly. When time intervals were increased from 1 to 10 seconds, perseverations decreased significantly. Sentence completion and picture naming elicited significantly more perseverations than word reading. Perseveration and other verbal errors were similarly affected by the variable of semantic difficulty, but only perseverative errors were significantly reduced when time intervals were increased. Word length, presentation order of tasks and conditions, and time postonset of aphasia appeared to have little relationship to perseveration.

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In the few reported studies on the effects of drug therapy on the speech symptoms of patients with Parkinson'8 disease, the conclusion generally has been that medication does not improve speech. Recent studies on the drug, L-dopa, indio cate that large doses reduce the severity of physical signs and symptoms. In this investigation, the speech of 21 parkinsonian patients was evaluated under various conditions of L-dopa therapy. Although statistical significance was obtained for only one aspect (the time factor) of speech in favor of improvement during maximal dosage (4-8 gm daily), there appeared to be a trend in the direction of improved speech during L-dopa therapy. These findings are not nearly as dramatic as the improvement in physical symptoms observed in the same patients. However, the speech changes all occurred within less than one month; greater changes might have been observed had the patients been followed for a longer period with maximal dosage.Speech pathologists have long been concerned with the speech disorder associated with Parkinson's disease, and have identified the various aspects of speech impairment during the progression of parkinsonism (1-4). These include speaking-time characteristics, clarity of articulation, quality and pitch of the voice and vocal intensity. There is, however, a paucity of literature concerning the relationship between speech behavior and the major therapies-drug or surgical. Although the few reported studies generally indicate that the speech disorder is not significantly improved by either drug therapy or surgical intervention (5-7), an exception is an early report by Birkmayer and Hornykiewicz (8) on the effects of the drug, L-dopa. These authors observed improvement in speech as well as in many other symptoms of parkinsonism during treatment with L-dopa.After this initial study, other investigators began to test the drug and to publish diverse results (9-11); some reported a marked reduction of symptoms whereas others reported little change. Apparently the reason

The purpose of this research was to investigate the perception of elderly and chronically ill patients regarding the spoken communication that occurs in a long-term care institution. Twenty-four patients were given a focused semi-standardized interview to investigate their perception of how much they talked, their communication partners, where they talked, their topics, their desire and enjoyment in talking, factors affecting communication, and suggestions for improving the communication atmosphere in this setting. Results indicate that communication is limited in quantity and scope, though elderly patients desire communicative interaction. The results of the study are explained from two perspectives-how the patients themselves contribute to the limited communication and how institutional life restricts interaction. Implications for the speech pathologist are given.

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