Training agrammatic subjects on passive sentences: implications for syntactic deficit theories.

We trained two subjects with chronic agrammatic aphasia on production of passive sentences using a computerized, iconic-based communication system. After training, one of the subjects demonstrated significant improvements in his abilities to comprehend and verbally produce English passive voiced sentences, including sentences with conjoined subjects and objects. These results suggest that agrammatism does not represent a fixed syntactic deficit. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.