Transfer effects on spoken sentence comprehension and functional communication after working memory training in stroke aphasia.

Abstract Recent treatment protocols have been successful in improving working memory (WM) in individuals with aphasia. However, the evidence to date is small and the extent to which improvements in trained tasks of WM transfer to untrained memory tasks, spoken sentence comprehension, and functional communication is yet poorly understood. To address these issues, we conducted a multiple baseline study with three German-speaking individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia. Participants practised two computerised WM tasks ( n -back with pictures and n -back with spoken words) four times a week for a month, targeting two WM processes: updating WM representations and resolving interference. All participants showed improvement on at least one measure of spoken sentence comprehension and everyday memory activities. Two of them showed improvement also on measures of WM and functional communication. Our results suggest that WM can be improved through computerised training in chronic aphasia and this can transfer to spoken sentence comprehension and functional communication in some individuals. Highlights • Working memory improved after an adaptive n -back training in three participants with chronic post-stroke aphasia. • We detected a mixed pattern of transfer of training across participants. • Outcome measures showing improvements after training included tests of spoken sentence comprehension, functional communication, and everyday memory. • Improvements in spoken sentence comprehension were maintained at six weeks after completion of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]