I do the writing exercises like we are all told to do.  Once I have gotten to the point where my answers are all correct, I go back and do them again.  This time, I only allow myself to read the sentence once; I do not allow myself to read it again.  This really forces me to focus on what I am writing and saying.  More than that, I feel like I'm doing the exercise in real time, which has helped speed up my response time.

It can be very difficult to read a sentence like this once and speak and write it in Spanish from memory: Are doctors interested in eyes, faces, feet, hands, heads and mouths?

I don't know if anyone else has any ideas that they've come up with for working on comprehension, but I have definitely found this to be helpful in my studies.