Participants
post-stroke, stroke, left-hemispheric stroke, head injuries, dementia, ExpG, comprehension impairment, post-stroke visual deficits, neurological or psychiatric diseases, aphasia, substance abuse
STROKE
Thirty four post-stroke patients (22 male) suffering from aphasia after their first left-hemispheric stroke (lesion age: Me = 32 weeks; min–max: 5–195 weeks) participated in the study. Participants’ ages ranged from 30 to 82 years (M ± SD: 59 ± 13 years). They were right-handed native speakers of Polish. Participants displayed normal hearing verified by pure-tone screening audiometry (Audiometer MA33, MAICO). The following exclusion criteria, verified during an interview with the caregivers of the patients, were applied: recurrent stroke, global aphasia, severe comprehension impairment, post-stroke visual deficits, prior neurological or psychiatric diseases, substance abuse, history of head injuries, and signs of dementia. Detailed characteristics for the patients are presented in Table Characteristics of the patient sample (This study was controlled, randomised, and single-blinded. The patients were classified into two groups: the experimental group (ExpG), who used the experimental training program, and the control group (ConG), who used the control training. For a detailed description of both trainings, see below. As PWA usually display huge inter-individual variability, ExpG and ConG were matched as closely as possible for age, lesion age and volume, gender, as well as pre-training levels of tested functions (i.e., speech difficulties, TIP, memory, and executive functions). It is worth noting that even though some of the abovementioned cognitive variables tended to be higher and lesion age tended to be shorter in ExpG, the statistical differences were nonsignificant. Descriptions of particular assessment procedures can be found in the Procedure section and a statistical comparison of the groups before training can be found in Table Characteristics of the two training groups in the pre-training assessment: mean and standard deviation values of demographic variables and scores of tests.t(32) = -0.827p = .415U = 100.0p = .129t(25) = -.174p = .863χp = 0.642U = 55.5p = 0.220t(32) = − 0.725p = 0.474U = 131.0p = 0.645U = 116.5p = 0.340U = 87.5p = 0.303U = 88.0p = 0.482U = 91.0p = 0.105U = 89.0p = 0.215t(31) = 0.89p = 0.382U = 99.5p = 0.584U = 115.5p = 0.856t(31) = − 0.161p = 0.873The location of the lesion was verified by CT or MRI in 27 out of 34 individuals (13 from ExpG, 14 from ConG; Fig. Lesion overlap maps of participants from (