Effects of mindfulness meditation on attention processes in people with aphasia.
International journal of speech-language pathology May 9, 2026 Britta Biedermann, Rosemary Croasdale, Anne Whitworth et al.
Intensive meditation training can improve visual and auditory attention in people with chronic post-stroke aphasia, even when verbal-language skills remain largely unchanged. Five individuals with chronic aphasia, anomia, good comprehension, and no meditation experience completed a 9-week meditation program. Before training, all showed deficits in at least one attention task alongside word retrieval and verbal working memory problems. After training, four of the five participants improved on at least one measure of non-verbal attention. Only one participant showed gains in verbal-language skills. The findings suggest that attention can be enhanced independently of language in aphasia through regular meditation practice.