We conducted a preliminary study to investigate the effects of a Neuropsychological Educational Approach to Cognitive Remediation (NEAR), one of the cognitive remediation therapies, on neurocognitive functions assessed by Japanese version of Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS-J), and on prefrontal and temporal hemodynamic responses during working memory (WM) task (2-back, letter version) using 52-channel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). We assessed sixteen patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder twice with an interval of six months. As previously reported, after NEAR, they showed significant improvement in four subcomponents of BACS-J, that is, verbal memory, motor speed, attention, executive functions along with composite score representing overall neurocognitive function. After NEAR, the patient group showed a significant increase in brain activation in bilateral cortical regions associated with working memory. In addition, the amount of enhancement in some cognitive subcomponents was positively correlated with the magnitude of an increase in hemodynamic response during WM task predominantly in right hemispheres. These findings suggest that neurocognitive deficits in schizophrenia and its related disorder, and their underlying neural dysfunction can be improved by NEAR.