A-35 Assessing the Impact of Expressive Language on Performance on Conners’ Continuous Performance Test 3rd Edition (CPT3) in Inpatients with Aphasia

Objective The current study examined the impact of expressive language difficulties, assessed by the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery (NAB) naming subtest, on the Conners’ Continuous Performance Test-Third edition (CPT3) in an inpatient acquired brain injury (ABI) population. Method A sample of 19 individuals (female n = 3, male n = 16) was evaluated through an inpatient ABI rehabilitation program. Two groups based on diagnosed aphasia (n = 7) versus no aphasia (n = 12) were used. Ages ranged from 15 to 67 (M = 38.37, SD = 16.55) and had an average level of education of 14.9 years. Results One-way ANOVAs were used to determine how expressive language impacts performance on the CPT3. As expected, statistically significant results revealed that having aphasia yields a lower score on NAB naming F(1,17) = 11.435, p = .004. Individuals who did not have aphasia had a higher number of Perseverations, F(1,17) = 5.295, p = .034. No differences were noted between Omissions F(1,17) = 2.060, p = .169, Commissions F(1,17) = 3.090, p = .097, and Hit Reaction Time F(1,17) = .434, p = .519. Conclusions In our sample, patients with and without aphasia had similar reaction times and similar performances for omissions and commissions. The aphasia group, with significantly worse expressive language abilities, did not score significantly worse on any of the CPT3-related indices. Our study supports previous literature that CPT3 is an appropriate attention measure for individuals with aphasia but adds to the literature in providing evidence for use of the measure with an acute inpatient population with aphasia. While the results are promising, our sample is small and future research would be stronger with a larger sample with more specific information provided regarding the types of aphasia.