A Visual Attention Training Program for the Improvement of Auditory Comprehension in Aphasia

Attention as a non-linguistic cognitive component appears to play a role in language performance. Few research have identified evidence of contribution of attention training in improvement of auditory comprehension with Individuals with Aphasia (IWA). Based on the previous studies, it was hypothesized that visual attention training improves auditory comprehension in IWA with moderate severity. Three adults (two male and one female) with chronic aphasia participated in the study, all with attention and auditory comprehension deficits included in the study using the auditory comprehension subset of Persian version of the Western Aphasia Battery (P-WAB) and Farsi Aphasia Test (FAT). Adopted attention cognitive tests of Stroop and Continuous Performance Test (CPT) were used to measure cognitive capabilities pre-treatment. NEurocognitive Joyful Attentive Training Intervention (NEJATI) was used as an attention cognitive intervention in a 6-weeks training program through single subject non-concurrent multiple baseline design across participants to evaluate treatment effects. Cohen’s d-static was used to quantify treatment effect size. Two of the three participants showed significant improvements in their auditory comprehension skills with corresponding effect sizes that were large and medium in magnitude (d = 5.7 and d = 4.1 respectively). The third participant did not show any sign of improvement (d = 0.5). The hypothesis that attention training leads to improvement in auditory comprehension in moderate aphasia has been confirmed in this study. Cognitive factors can also play a role in the effectiveness of the treatment. This finding needs to be more investigated in larger population of aphasia patients with control for cognitive abilities variabilities.