66 Unless otherwise noted, the publisher, which is the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA), holds the copyright on all materials published in Perspectives on Neurophysiology and Neurogenic Speech and Language Disorders, both as a compilation and as individual articles. Please see Rights and Permissions for terms and conditions of use of Perspectives content: http://journals.asha.org/perspectives/terms.dtl Aprosodia and Its Treatment Susan A. Leon 1,2,3 Amy D. Rodriguez 2,3 Neurology Service 1 and VA R&RD Brain Rehabilitation Research Center 2 , Malcom Randall VA Medical Center Department of Communicative Disorders 3 , University of Florida Gainesville, FL Abstract Aprosodia is a deficit in comprehending or expressing variations in tone of voice used to express both linguistic and emotional information. Affective aprosodia refers to a specific deficit in producing or comprehending the emotional or affective tones of voice. Aprosodia is most commonly associated with right hemisphere strokes; however, it may also result from other types of brain damage such as traumatic brain injury. Although research investigating hemispheric lateralization of prosody continues, there is strong evidence that most aspects of affective prosody are directed by the right hemisphere. Disorders of emotional communication can have a significant impact on quality of life for those affected and their families. However, there has been relatively little research regarding treatment for this disorder. Recently, 14 individuals were treated for affective aprosodia using two treatments, one based on cognitive-linguistic cues and the other on imitation of prosodic modeling. Most of the participants responded to at least one of the two treatments, and a refinement of the treatments are currently underway. Because researchers are finding support for the hypothesis that expressive aprosodia can result from a motor deficit, the refined treatment incorporates principles of motor learning to enhance imitation of prosodic models, as well as cognitive-linguistic cues. Spoken language has two components. The first obviously consists of the words that are chosen and arranged to convey an intended message. The less obvious component is the prosody used to intone the chosen words. Prosody provides the rhythm of language and includes acoustic characteristics such as loudness, pitch, and duration. These acoustic elements vary in systematic ways to convey both linguistic and affective information. For instance, a rising pitch contour at the end of a sentence indicates that the spoken message is a question. This is known as linguistic prosody. In contrast, affective prosody conveys the emotional connotation of the message. A speaker expresses sadness, happiness, etc., using variations in the same acoustic elements (e.g., a sad voice is usually quieter and has a falling pitch contour). What is now called “aprosodia” was first defined by Monrad-Krohn (1947) as difficulty comprehending or expressing the variations in tone of voice that constitute affective prosody. It is now known that many individuals with aprosodia have difficulty