Nonlinguistic Cognitive Factors Predict Treatment-Induced Recovery in Chronic Poststroke Aphasia.
Natalie Gilmore, Erin L Meier, Jeffrey P Johnson and 1 others
PMID 30639272WHAT IT FOUND
In chronic poststroke aphasia, pre-treatment nonlinguistic cognitive scores predicted language therapy gains.
Higher executive function and visual short-term memory were linked to greater naming gains, including gains seen after treatment ended.
Key findings
0137.31% of participants scored below normal limits on the nonlinguistic cognitive visuospatial domain.
02Pre-treatment linguistic and nonlinguistic cognitive components both predicted treatment-related language gain, and nonlinguistic cognition was more influential for naming than for sentence comprehension.
03In the naming subset, executive function and visual short-term memory predicted immediate and maintained naming gains in models that also included apraxia of speech and auditory comprehension.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
This is a predictive analysis of people already in therapy studies, so it cannot show that nonlinguistic cognition caused better language therapy outcomes. Study 2 used only 27 participants, and the authors note the participant-to-variable ratio of 1.93 may have made the analysis underpowered. There is no gold standard test for nonlinguistic cognition in aphasia, so scores may have been affected by apraxia of speech, auditory comprehension, motor impairment, or visual problems. The treatment data came from multiple baseline single-subject design studies, so the analysis combined data from different therapy studies rather than one single treatment protocol.
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest were identified. The article is listed as supported by NIH extramural research.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that treating executive function or visual short-term memory will improve aphasia therapy outcomes. The study only measured pre-treatment scores and found they went with therapy gains.