Aphasia Therapy in an Arabic-Speaking Individual After Stroke: A Case Report

Authors

• Mohammed F. ALHarbi Dr, Taibah UniversityFollow

Abstract

Purpose: This case report describes the clinical application and preliminary outcomes of Arabic-adapted Semantic Feature Analysis (SFA), Phonological Components Analysis (PCA), and Verb Network Strengthening Treatment (VNeST) in an Arabic-speaking adult with post-stroke aphasia and highlights language-specific factors that affect the adaptation of these interventions to Arabic. Methods: The participant was a 53-year-old right-handed native Arabic-speaking man who developed moderate to severe nonfluent transcortical motor aphasia after a left middle cerebral artery stroke. One month after stroke onset, he underwent assessment with the Short Aphasia Test for Gulf Arabic speakers, which showed relatively preserved auditory comprehension and repetition but marked impairments in naming, spontaneous speech, reading, and writing. Intervention was delivered over four weeks using a block design with three sessions per week, each lasting 60 minutes. During the first two weeks, SFA and PCA were alternated to target lexical retrieval, while VNeST was introduced during the other two weeks to support verb retrieval and sentence-level production. Probe measures were administered every two sessions, and the assessment was repeated after treatment. Results: Posttreatment findings showed improvement across language domains, with the largest gains in naming, which increased from 14% to 82%, and semispontaneous speech, which improved from 0% to 33%. Additional gains were observed in auditory comprehension, repetition, reading, and writing. Clinically, the participant became more fluent, used phrases and short sentences more effectively, and showed positive treatment trends on trained probes. Conclusions: These findings provide preliminary support for the feasibility and clinical utility of Arabic-adapted SFA, PCA, and VNeST in post-stroke aphasia rehabilitation. They also suggest that Arabic morphosyntax, root-pattern morphology, and diglossia complicate the direct transfer of English-based treatment protocols, underscoring the need for Arabic-specific treatment procedures, scoring criteria, and larger controlled studies.

Author Bio(s)

Dr. Mohammed Falah ALHarbi is Assistant Professor and Dean of Medical Rehabilitation Sciences at Taibah University, Madinah, Saudi Arabia. He holds a PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences (Speech-Language Pathology) from the University of Kentucky. His research focuses on aphasia assessment and intervention and other adult neurogenic communication disorders. 

Acknowledgements

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Recommended Citation

ALHarbi MF. Aphasia Therapy in an Arabic-Speaking Individual After Stroke: A Case Report. The Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice. 2026 Jun 02;24(2), Article 18.