Management of acquired language disorders associated with attentional impairment

Understanding the Economics of Aphasia: Recent Findings from Speech and Language Research

“…These new and novel outcomes emphasize the remediation of other processes such as attention, socialization, and general well-being that also underlie aphasia impairments. 34 While this growth is important to the field and offers tremendous potential to PWA, this growth must be contextualized. Contextualization not only allows stakeholders to evaluate feasibility but also permits comparisons within and between treatments, allowing for the comprehensive assessment of the resources that they utilize.…”

Language-Specific Attention Treatment for Aphasia: Description and Preliminary Findings

“…45 Based on these outcomes, it has been suggested that attentional treatments for language should be performed within the language domain and under conditions that compete for attentional resources. 16,28,47 That is, language processing is apt to improve only when attentional resources are deployed for specific language tasks that require control over and coordination of multiple processes (e.g., semantic, lexical, syntactic, phonologic).…”

“…The background literature, describing the means by which these tasks utilize attentional resources, has been summarized previously. 16 The program is based on a series of recommended principles for attention training and includes: (1) training attentional focus and resource management for language; (2) increasing attentional demands; (3) automatizing attentional recruitment for language; (4) engaging undamaged attentional mechanisms in the nondominant hemisphere; and (5) incorporating linguistic tasks that require controlled attention. 16 The program was developed so that it could be administered in $15 sessions (three sessions per week over 5 weeks).…”

“…16 The program is based on a series of recommended principles for attention training and includes: (1) training attentional focus and resource management for language; (2) increasing attentional demands; (3) automatizing attentional recruitment for language; (4) engaging undamaged attentional mechanisms in the nondominant hemisphere; and (5) incorporating linguistic tasks that require controlled attention. 16 The program was developed so that it could be administered in $15 sessions (three sessions per week over 5 weeks). A clinician manual with directions for task administration, the materials needed for each task, the task stimuli, and scoring procedures has been developed and can be obtained by contacting the first author by e-mail.…”

“…1,11 ATTENTION AND APHASIA REHABILITATION Attention deficits in people with aphasia are well known. [13][14][15][16][17][18] Such deficits reduce these speakers' ability to (1) focus on incoming verbal information while excluding competing or distracting information, (2) track conversation and context to support the interpretation of new information, and (3) produce coherent outputs from among several contending alternatives. 11,19 Given this, it is not surprising that attention deficits contribute to language impairments following aphasia.…”