Less Testing, More Insight: Preliminary Evidence for Streamlining Cognitive Assessment in Aphasia

Aphasia, a common consequence of stroke, often co-occurs with nonlinguistic cognitive impairments, yet cognitive assessment in clinical care remains limited by lengthy, linguistically demanding, and sometimes redundant tools. This preliminary study examined redundancy across common cognitive tasks and explored how nonlinguistic cognition relates to language severity in people with aphasia. Seventeen adults with chronic aphasia and twenty-one matched controls completed the Visual and Auditory Duration Attention Network Tests, the Test of Everyday Attention, and the Cognitive Linguistic Quick Test Plus. Principal component analysis revealed six components with subtests from the same battery clustering together, indicating redundancy. Regression analyses showed that visuospatial processing speed and auditory orienting attention predicted less severe aphasia, whereas greater visual sustained attention was linked to more severe aphasia, suggesting compensatory visual strategies. These findings highlight the need for streamlined, language-minimized cognitive assessments to improve efficiency, diagnostic accuracy, and individualized rehabilitation planning.