Language relearning during aphasia treatment (Goldberg et al., 2025)

<p dir="ltr"><b>Purpose:</b> Aphasia rehabilitation is a learning process that unfolds over time. Previous group studies have examined aphasia treatment response using pre- to posttreatment comparison, largely ignoring the unfolding learning response that occurs session-to-session. We aimed to (a) characterize the shape of learning while individuals with aphasia received intensive anomia intervention and (b) identify the cognitive predictors of this learning response.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Method:</b> Individuals (<i>N</i> = 39) with chronic poststroke aphasia received intensive semantic feature analysis (SFA). Naming accuracy for trained and semantically related, untrained words was probed daily. We used Bayesian generalized linear mixed-effects models to estimate the shape of learning during SFA treatment and to measure the influence of key cognitive functions on treatment response.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Results:</b> Most treatment gains appeared early during treatment, after the first 4 hr of intervention. Verbal recognition and visuospatial memory were associated with the magnitude of those early treatment gains, favoring strong cognitive performers. Treatment generalization to untrained targets was present but modest, with some evidence suggesting that visuospatial recall performance may be associated with treatment generalization.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Conclusions:</b> Monitoring SFA treatment response early could help inform clinicians whether patients will respond optimally to intervention. Verbal recognition and visuospatial recall support learning during treatment, helping elucidate cognitive underpinnings of learning during aphasia rehabilitation.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Supplemental Material S1.</b> golberg_DR1probe_supplemental.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Supplemental Material S2.</b> Model structures used to address all study aims via the brms package in R Studio.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Supplemental Material S3. </b>Aim 1 model coefficients.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Supplemental Material S4. </b>Aim 2 model coefficients with z-transformed Camden Verbal Memory score as the cognitive variable of interest.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Supplemental Material S5. </b>Estimated naming accuracy of trained and untrained items for individuals with above average (top) and below average (bottom) verbal recognition memory scores.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Supplemental Material S6. </b>Aim 2 model coefficients with z-transformed Rey Visuospatial Recall score as the cognitive variable of interest.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Supplemental Material S7. </b>Estimated naming accuracy of trained and untrained items for individuals with above average (top) and below average (bottom) visuospatial recall scores.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Supplemental Material S8. </b>Aim 2 model coefficients with z-transformed TEA score as the cognitive variable of interest.</p><p dir="ltr"><b>Supplemental Material S9. </b>Estimated naming accuracy of trained and untrained items for individuals with above average (top) and below average (bottom) sustained attention scores.</p><p dir="ltr">Goldberg, E. B., Hula, W. D., Cavanaugh, R., Swiderski, A. M., Autenreith, A., & Dickey, M. W. (2025). Cognitive functions supporting learning over time in naming treatment for aphasia. <i>Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research,</i><i> </i><i>68</i>(11), 5384–5398. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_JSLHR-25-00101" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_JSLHR-25-00101</a></p>