Functional communication and executive function in aphasia.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the relationship between functional communication and executive function ability in aphasia. Twenty-five participants with aphasia underwent examination with an extensive test battery including measures of functional communication, executive function ability, and language impairment. Compared to published norms, most participants did not perform within normal limits on the executive function tests. As expected, the correlation between severity of language impairment and functional communication ratings exceeded that among the executive functioning and functional communication measures. Eight of ten correlation coefficients for the relationship between executive functioning and functional communication reached statistical significance suggesting a clear relationship between scores on the executive functioning measures and functional communication ability. Based on these results, it appears that decreased executive functioning ability may coincide with decreased functional communication ability in persons with aphasia.