"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence" Abigail Adams (as cited in Barker-Benfield, 2010)

In a letter to John Quincy Adams on May 8, 1780, Abigail Adams captures some of the essential elements to learning. Throughout this issue of Topics in Language Disorders, the authors share information about other essential elements of learning and its application to interventions for people with acquired communication disorders. Issue editor, Dr Sofia Vallila-Rohter, developed this issue "Considering Principles of Learning in the Treatment of Acquired Communication Disorders" and invited authors to write a variety of articles related to the topics of learning. The authors explore concussion from a life span perspective across multiple rehabilitation phases to provide readers with information about short- and long-term effects of concussion.

First, Wright, Sohlberg, Watson-Stites, and McCart (2020) explore multidisciplinary team services provided to students experiencing cognitive effects after concussion through a series of case examples. Their review of retrospective data aligns well with current understanding of concussion risk factors and provides insight into speech-language pathology practices in concussion treatment in adolescents after concussion. Next, Middleton, Schuchard, and Rawson (2020) review the literature related to distributed practice and highlight specific information regarding key findings from psychology research on learning and memory. Next, Silkes, Baker, and Love (2020) investigate learning in aphasia through examination of semantic and repetition priming effects. These findings have implications for the design of and dosage assigned for aphasia therapy programs. Similarly, Coran, Rodriguez-Fornells, Ramos-Escobar, Martin, and Laine (2020) evaluate a therapy program for four participants with aphasia in a preliminary examination including structural connectivity analyses and a novel word learning task. Finally, Vallila-Rohter and Czupryna (2020) provide findings from an investigation of attention allocation using eye tracking during a category learning task performed by people with aphasia. The results suggest some potential additional processing time or trails needed by people with aphasia during similar clinical therapy tasks.

In summary, the authors of this issue provide guidance to professionals designing therapy programs for individuals with acquired communication disorders. Furthermore, the articles provide considerations for theoretical development and provoke ideas about how learning theories and therapy tasks intersect.

-Sarah E. Wallace, PhD

Co-Editor

-Gary A. Troia, PhD

Co-Editor

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