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Background/Study Context: Lexical retrieval abilities and executive function skills decline with age. The extent to which these processes might be interdependent remains unknown. The aim of the current study was to examine whether individual differences in three executive functions (shifting, fluency, and inhibition) predicted naming performance in older adults. Methods:The sample included 264 adults aged 55-84. Six measures of executive functions were combined to make three executive function composites scores. Lexical retrieval performance was measured by accuracy and response time on two tasks: object naming and action naming. We conducted a series of multiple regressions to test whether executive function performance predicts naming abilities in older adults. Results:We found that different executive functions predicted naming speed and accuracy. Shifting predicted naming accuracy for both object and action naming while fluency predicted response times on both tests as well as object naming accuracy, after controlling for education, gender, age, working memory span, and speed of processing in all regressions. Interestingly, inhibition did not contribute to naming accuracy or response times on either task.

A review of the behavioral treatments implemented in tDCS aphasia rehabilitation studies highlights several methodological considerations for future investigations. Impairment-focused and pragmatic treatments have been implemented in tDCS aphasia research studies. No one behavioral approach stands out as the best treatment to combine with tDCS for the promotion of language recovery.

Background: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a non-invasive method of brain stimulation, is an adjunctive research-therapy for aphasia. The concept supporting translational application of tDCS is that brain plasticity, facilitated by language intervention, can be enhanced by non-invasive brain stimulation. This study combined tDCS with an ecologically focused behavioral approach that involved training nouns and verbs in sentences.Method: Participant: A 43-year-old, right-handed male with fluent-anomic aphasia who sustained a single-left-hemisphere-temporal-parietal stroke was recruited.Treatment: Instrumentation included the Soterix Medical 1 × 1 Device. Anodal tDCS was applied over Broca’s area. Behavioral materials included: sentence production, naming in the sentence context, and implementation of a social-conversational-discourse treatment.Design and Procedures: The independent variable of this crossover case-study was tDCS, and the dependent variables were language and quality-of-life measures. In each session the subject received language treatment with the first 20 minutes additionally including tDCS.Results: Performance in naming nouns and verbs in single words and sentences were obtained. Verb production in the sentence context increased after active anodal tDCS and speech-language treatment.Conclusion: Aphasia treatment that involves naming in the sentence context in conjunction with translational application of tDCS may be a promising approach for language-recovery post stroke.