Positive effects of a computerised working memory and executive function training on sentence comprehension in aphasia

ABSTRACT

Aphasia, the language disorder following brain damage, is frequently accompanied by deficits of working memory (WM) and executive functions (EFs). Recent studies suggest that WM, together with certain EFs, can play a role in sentence comprehension in individuals with aphasia (IWA), and that WM can be enhanced with intensive practice. Our aim was to investigate whether a combined WM and EF training improves the understanding of spoken sentences in IWA. We used a pre–post-test case control design. Three individuals with chronic aphasia practised an adaptive training task (a modified n-back task) three to four times a week for a month. Their performance was assessed before and after the training on outcome measures related to WM and spoken sentence comprehension. One participant showed significant improvement on the training task, another showed a tendency for improvement, and both of them improved significantly in spoken sentence comprehension. The third participant did not improve on the training task, however, she showed improvement on one measure of spoken sentence comprehension. Compared to controls, two individuals improved at least in one condition of the WM outcome measures. Thus, our results suggest that a combined WM and EF training can be beneficial for IWA.

KEYWORDS:

• Aphasia rehabilitation
• transfer effect
• updating training
• interference control
• sentence comprehension deficit

Acknowledgements

We thank K.K., B.L., and B.B. for participating and Éva Jánosi Mentuszné, Tünde Buják and Zsuzsanna Barta for their help in running the study. During part of this study, Lilla Zakariás was supported by the Collaboration of Aphasia Trialists [COST IS1208].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹There has been a longstanding debate about whether LIFG serves language-specific or domain-general functions (Ben-Shachar, Hendler, Kahn, Ben-Bashat, & Grodzinsky, 2003; Novick et al., 2005, respectively). In an elegant fMRI study designed to resolve this controversy, Fedorenko, Duncan, and Kanwisher (2012) found that this area exhibits a high degree of functional heterogeneity: domain-general and language-specific regions lie side by side and, accordingly, one region is engaged in language processing whereas the other is broadly engaged in domain-general processes independently of task and content.