The Importance of Attention Skills in Aphasia Recovery
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Editor's Note - Sharon Rennhack:
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In the current edition, we discuss the importance of attention skills in aphasia recovery.
- What is attention? - What is cognition? - How does attention or inattention affect the person with aphasia? - How does aphasiatoolbox® exploit neuroplasticity by addressing attention and cognitive skills in order to maximize recovery?
"Let's get this straight, once and for all. The cognitive domains of language and memory/attention always work together in order to create speech and language. Language and cognition are inseparable. Each aphasia treatment program must address the interaction between them and exploit the synergies." Bill Connors
The current edition of the Seminars in Speech and Language Journal emphasizes just how critical it is to weave work on attention, working memory, executive functions, and other cognitive mental processes into aphasia treatment and practice. The journal's articles explicitly explain how treatment materials, apps, worksheets or drills that address cognition should not be isolated experiences for the person with aphasia, but rather must be part of and intrinsically integrated into a robust language treatment experience. The expert SLPs at aphasiatoolbox® carefully incorporate vigorous cognitive training into every individual aphasia treatment program which is one reason our clients maximizing their recoveries and conversing with others better everyday. Schedule a consultation to discuss how this is done.
- In the
video/ Tip of the Month, Brooke Lang and Bill Connors discuss how clients can improve their attention skills; Brook demonstrates several aphasiatoolbox tasks or exercises.
- We include information on recent research on attention and cognition.
For information on how we can help your recovery using our aphasiatoolbox® program, contact us at information@aphasiatoolbox.com OR click here schedule a free consultation and select a 30 minute phone call with our an aphasia recovery expert.
Aphasiatoolbox®: We are Aphasia Recovery.
What is Attention?
What is attention? Attention refers to the ability to focus, alternate, and shift mental
attention. Research evidence is clear that improving attention - ie, the
cognitive skills of a person with aphasia, is crucial in maximizing speech and language recovery.
What is the relationship between attention and cognition?
Attention and cognition are inter-related - that is, they work together to perform certain tasks especially in the language domain.
> Attention is the ability to concentrate while shutting out distractions.
> Cognition includes the thought processes of the brain involved in the learning (or re-learning) process.
How does attention effect the person with aphasia? When an individual attempts to concentrate, or apply attention to a certain task, cognition is required to kick on in order for the information to be processed, learned and stored for future use. Since attention and cognition are inter-related, when attention is limited, cognition is also limited.
How does aphasiatoolbox address attention and cognitive skills? See the video from Bill Connors and Brooke Lang on attention in this edition then
contact us for a consultation.
Bill Connors and Brooke Lang discuss: The importance of Attention Skills
In this month's edition, Bill Connors interviews aphasiatool
box®clinician Brooke Lang; they discuss the importance of attention skills in aphasia recovery. Brooke shows examples of tasks that she uses with her clients, including the Gradual Reading task, the schwa-initiated increasing syllables task, and other.
The Importance of Attention Skills in Aphasia Recovery
Summary: Greater variability in reaction time is associated with reduced gray matter volume in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a new study reports. Source: Larner College of Medicine. 2017
Understanding how information flows within and between various brain regions is one of the many unsolved mysteries of
neuroscience. Recently, a
team of neuroscientists broke new ground by pinpointing a unique mechanism that operates like a "switchboard" in the cerebral cortex and appears to control the flow of sensory information in the mammalian brain. 2017
In their new book, The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World, Dr. Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist, and Dr. Larry Rosen, a psychologist, explain how our ability to pay attention works and what we can do to stay focused. 2017
Cognitive flexibility represents someone's ability to shift thoughts and adapt his or her behavior to an ever-changing environment. Levels of cognitive flexibility are reflected by your ability to disengage from a previous task and respond effectively to another task-or to multitask. The more cognitive flexibility an individual has, the greater the chances are that this person can optimize his or her human potential. 2015
Abstract: This study was designed to further elucidate the relationship between cognition and aphasia, with a focus on attention. It was hypothesized that individuals with aphasia would display variable deficit patterns on tests of attention and other cognitive functions and that their attention deficits, particularly those of complex attention functions, would be related to their language and communication status. A group of individuals with varying types and severity of aphasia and a group of age- and education-matched adults with no brain damage completed tests of attention, short-term and working memory, and executive functioning. Overall, the group with aphasia performed significantly more poorly than the control group on the cognitive measures but displayed variability in the presence, types, and severity of their attention and other cognitive deficits. Correlational and regression analyses yielded significant relations between participants' attention deficits and their language and communication status. The findings accorded well with prior research identifying (a) attention and other cognitive deficits in most but not all individuals with aphasia; (b) heterogeneity in the types and severity of attention and other cognitive symptoms among individuals with cognitive impairments; and (c) potent associations among attention, language, and other cognitive domains. Implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed. 2012
Cognitive-communication disorders are problems with communication that have an underlying cause in a cognitive deficit rather than a primary language or speech deficit.
