Drawing and gesturing in aphasia

The aim of the present review will consist of surveying the role that non-verbal tasks based on gestures and free drawing can have on the assessment of defective representational activities and on the rehabilitation of aphasic patients. The relationships between verbal and non-verbal cognitive disorders of aphasic patients and the underlying mechanisms will be considered in the first part of this review. Then the contribution of gesture or drawing based tasks to the rehabilitation of aphasic patients will be discussed, taking separately into account: (a) the use of these tasks to compensate for a severe reduction of language abilities and (b) their use to improve naming ability in individuals with aphasia. The theoretical and clinical differences between the use of gesture or drawing-based tasks for rehabilitation purposes will subsequently be taken into account and, finally, the relationships between right hemisphere and non-verbal representational activities will be shortly discussed.