The use of standardised short-term and working memory tests in aphasia research: a systematic review.
Laura Murray, Christos Salis, Nadine Martin and 1 others
PMID 27143500WHAT IT FOUND
No standardised short-term or working memory test is a gold standard for people with aphasia.
Use more than one test, including non-verbal tasks, because many common tests give unstable scores.
Key findings
01The reviewed aphasia studies included 898 participants, but people with severe aphasia or Wernicke's aphasia were under-represented.
02Auditory-verbal short-term memory tests used in aphasia research gave unstable scores, with no test rated excellent.
03Of the 36 main studies, only three received a high overall quality rating.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The review only included English-language journal studies and test manuals, so tests or evidence in other languages may be missing. People with severe aphasia or Wernicke's aphasia were under-represented, so the findings may not apply to those groups. Most studies were not high quality: many did not describe the testing environment or the test administrator, and few controlled for age and education. Many test manuals and studies did not report enough information about reliability or measurement error, and some manuals could not be obtained. The review did not create new test scores; it rated the quality of what was already reported, so ratings may change if better reporting or analyses were available.
Declared interests
The authors reported no potential conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat Digit Span or any single short-term or working memory test as a definitive measure of memory in aphasia. The review found poor reliability for many tests and recommends using more than one test.