Cerebral gymnastics: part two

To the best of my recollection, (I'm not kidding I don't recall exactly but) the second round of activities in speech (cognitive) therapy addressed issues of the quality of the attention- the first round having worked on quantity i.e. duration of attention. The activities in round two all involved tasks that demanded "active" listening and reading for comprehension with testing of recall as the measurement /"forced use" aspect of the therapy's design.

In comparing the strategies and tactics of my physical and cognitive therapies I now see parallels in the sense that as the prescribed physical activities presented movements choreographed to "force" the use of my weakened affected side, the mental gymnastics prescribed for speech (cognitive) therapy presented tasks orchestrated to "force" the use of the affected areas of my brain --or the use of thought processes conventionally associated with the right hemisphere of the brain where CT-Scans and MRI's indicated cell damage from the loss of oxygen for the period of time when the normal flow of oxygenated blood through my middle cerebral artery (MCA) was interrupted by the stroke.

A sample of tasks involved included something as simple as listening or reading a passage then repeating a summary of the pertinent details. More challenging exercises involved reading a passage rich in details such as names of people performing various tasks or in possession of various objects and then completing a grid that represented who was doing what--with the trick being that the passage would not provide a"linear" or "complete" inventory of who was doing or was holding what-- so completing the grid required "active" comprehension in reading and re-reading the passage to gather pertinent data and to record "known" items on the grid -The final phase for completing the grid was , then, using what was known to induce or deduce by process of elimination other pieces of the puzzle.