Revealing Linguistic and Verbal Short-Term and Working Memory Abilities in People with Severe Aphasia.

Background: The assessment of aphasia in people with severe deficits is hampered by a paucity of tests that are appropriate for this population and that are sensitive to their underlying linguistic and short-term and working memory (STM/WM) strengths and weaknesses. The Temple Assessment of Language and Short-Term Memory in Aphasia (TALSA) provides a means of assessing people with severe aphasia (PWSA).

Aims: The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the sensitivity of the TALSA to the underlying linguistic and STM/WM strengths and weaknesses in PWSA. We assessed eight PWSA on selected subtests of the TALSA and found that 1) the TALSA is sensitive to the underlying linguistic and verbal STM/WM abilities of PWSA, 2) the TALSA reveals a wide variety of linguistic and verbal STM/WM profiles in PWSA and, 3) the TALSA can potentially demonstrate common patterns of performance in PWSA.

Main Contributions: The TALSA allows researchers to include more PWSA in the study of aphasia and enables clinicians to establish more accurate prognoses, create precisely targeted treatment plans and document incremental progress in therapy.

Conclusions: The TALSA is an important addition to the assessment of severe aphasia. It provides an in-depth evaluation of underlying linguistic and verbal STM/WM strengths and weaknesses of PWSA.