People with aphasia (PWA) also have deficits in attention, thinking, memory, and executive functions. Moreover, s growing body of literature indicates specific attention deficits in some PWA. These cognitive deficits, especially problems with attention, in turn negatively influence language processing and can impact the recovery of PWA.
There are several types of attention, including sustained attention or vigilance, selective or focused attention, alternating or switching attention, and divided attention. The more profound deficits in non-fluent aphasia are due to both primary switching attention deficits and increased inertness while with fluent aphasia modality-specific auditory attention and memory impairments play a substantial role.
