Examining the correlation of verbal command and imitation forms of oral apraxia test in left brain-damaged ischemic stroke patients

oral apraxia is a common consequent of brain damage which is assessed through two methods of pantomime on command and imitation of gestures. Responding to the verbal command form requires auditory comprehension of the command and then performing the intended gesture, but in the imitation form, the target movement is imitated via direct observation. The present study aimed at investigating the relationship between the scores of verbal command and imitation forms of oral apraxia task in left brain- damaged ischemic stroke patients. In this correlational study, 20 left hemisphere damaged patients due to a single ischemic CVA comprised of 12 males and 8 females (with age range of 35-73 years, mean= 60.68, SD= 11.9) were recruited by convenience sampling. An oral apraxia task with two forms of verbal command and imitation was carried out. As the data was distributed normally, Pearson correlation coefficient was used for data analysis. A significant positive correlation between the scores of verbal command and imitation forms of the task was revealed (rp = 0.671, p = 0.001). Although the scores of verbal command and imitation forms of oral apraxia task correlated significantly, the noteworthy point is that the correlation was not complete. So this seems reasonable that as verbal command and imitation tasks encompass different neural representations, it is necessary to use both forms for the patients and consider the results separately.