Previous studies have used semantic verb categories to compare how speakers with and without aphasia use verb types during narrative monologue discourse tasks. In this study, we explore the types of verbs used by speakers with and without aphasia during conversation. Using previously collected conversational discourse samples produced by 23 adults…

Aphasia therapy should address communication in everyday contexts. One type of social interaction that occurs frequently in the daily lives of spouses is joint decision-making. Currently, no known study has investigated how spouses collaboratively make decisions when one of the spouses has aphasia and the other one does not. The purpose of this…

Friendship is an essential component of quality of life. The ongoing lifestyle changes and strain typically experienced by care partners of people with aphasia (PWA) can impact their social network, with friendships being particularly vulnerable to change. This study aimed to understand the impact of caregiving on care partners' friendships over…

People with aphasia may produce speech errors or pauses during speaking turns. A communication partner may choose to guess the person's intended meaning, or may allow the person time to repair their turns (i.e., edited turns). The aim of this study was to understand the topic-related effects that occur when speakers without aphasia allow their…

Purpose: Communication access is a human right, but many individuals with communication impairments face challenges accessing their environments. As part of a larger study investigating barriers and facilitators to communication access in the retail/service industry, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the experiences of people…

Purpose: This article characterizes graduate student clinicians' (GSCs') understanding of their roles as stakeholders in clinical implementation and research before participating in an intensive comprehensive aphasia program (ICAP). Method: Seven GSCs participated in a pre-ICAP intervention focus group to characterize their perceived roles in…

Millions of people worldwide have experienced abrupt and traumatic disruption in the flow of their personal life story as a result of stroke and the onset of aphasia. For each one who survives and embarks on the journey toward recovery, their unique and evolving narrative yields gems of wisdom borne of the experience. This wisdom is shared with…

To support improved understanding of interaction among the heterogeneous people with aphasia who attend facilitated conversation groups we applied discourse structure analysis (DSA). We focused on group members with mild and severe aphasia. We identified the function of each communicative move, an utterance unit core to DSA, individuals made in…

This study investigates learning in aphasia as manifested through automatic priming effects. There is growing evidence that people with aphasia have impairments beyond language processing that could affect their response to treatment. Therefore, better understanding these mechanisms would be beneficial for improving methods of rehabilitation. This…

Purpose: Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for persons with aphasia (PWA) are commonly used to measure various outcomes. Persons with aphasia commonly present with language deficits that can likely increase respondent burden. Elements that contribute to respondent burden include readability, design, and formatting methods. The aims of this…

Purpose: To evaluate whether levels of cortisol, a stress-related hormone, predicted response to intensive speech-language intervention for individuals with chronic aphasia (IWA). Secondary analyses explored baseline cortisol levels, change following intervention, association between cortisol levels and aphasia severity, self-reported…

Visual scene displays (VSDs) are becoming an increasingly popular method of message representation within augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) supports; however, design factors can influence the effectiveness of these images as communication supports. One issue that has come to light in recent years is the fact that selecting…

Studies have identified deficits in attention in individuals with aphasia in language and nonlanguage tasks. Attention may play a role in the construction and use of language, as well as in learning and the process of rehabilitation, yet the role of attention on rehabilitation is not fully understood. To improve the understanding of attention and…

Objective: Of current interest in aphasia research is the relevance of what we can learn from studying word learning ability in aphasia. In a preliminary study, we addressed 2 issues related to the novel word learning ability of individuals with aphasia. First, as word learning engages large-scale cognitive-linguistic systems (language skills,…

Purpose: This article reviews four discourse measures and examines whether they are sensitive to impairments in people with both mild and severe aphasia. We also ask whether these measures were sensitive to effects of conversation treatment in two case examples. Method: Two people with aphasia, one mild and fluent and the other severe and…