When people with aphasia have difculty communicating, there is a risk for miscommunication and negative outcomes related to medical care and safety (Blacksone, Beukelman, & Yorkson, 2015). This risk can be reduced by ensuring that each person with aphasia can communicate efectively when using diferent types of discourse and at diferent points…

Individuals with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in later stages may rely on a variety of modalities to communicate. The current study used conversational analysis techniques to examine naturalistic face-to-face interaction between a man with late-stage ALS and his wife to understand the types of accommodations they made to ensure that…

Medical errors and poor patient care have been impacted by communication failures despite mandates for effective patient-provider communication (The Joint Commission, 2010). There are a high number of communication vulnerable individuals in medical situations due to new medical conditions, preexisting conditions, and language differences, to name…

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) have an important role in supporting the caregivers of persons with dementia from diagnosis through the end of life in 4 major areas: education, training to use effective cognitive communication strategies identified for clients with dementia, psychosocial/emotional support, and counseling. Speech-language…

Health care providers can experience increased diffculty communicating with adult patients during medical interactions when the patients have communication disorders. Meeting the communication needs of these patients can also create unique challenges for providers. The authors explore Communication Accommodation Theory (H. Giles, 1979) as a guide…

People with communication support needs experience barriers that limit their social inclusion in society. A community approach such as "communication access" that targets changing attitudes, skills, and resources may assist in facilitating community participation. The authors describe the development of communication access from 2008 in…

All children have the right to shape decisions that influence their lives. Yet, children with severe-to-profound intellectual disabilities and complex communication needs are often marginalized from this process. Here, we examined the utility of a set of tools incorporating ethnographic and structured observational methods with three such…

Purpose: A primary goal of aphasia intervention is to improve everyday communication. Although a large body of research focuses on treatment generalization, transfer of learning to real-world interactions involving discourse does not always occur. The goal of an integrated discourse treatment for aphasia (IDTA) approach is to facilitate such…

This article uses discourse analyses to examine the narrative styles produced by 2 women with a diagnosis of dementia. Because of constrained cognitive resources, people with dementia (PWD) often use alternative strategies to weave their stories into conversations. People with dementia have difficulty in initiating and maintaining a canonical…

This article elucidates the unfolding of 3 phases of cognitive development through which typical children move during the first 2 years of life to illuminate the interrelationships among early cognition, communicative intention, and word-learning strategies. The resulting theoretical framework makes clear the developmental prerequisites for social…

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease that results in loss of most motor functions by the time of death. Most persons with ALS experience a dysarthria that eventually renders oral/vocal communication unintelligible. This article reviews the communication needs of persons with ALS and the range of communication…

A qualitative study of group therapy for aphasia was undertaken in order to discover interaction patterns and discourse management strategies that help define "social" or "conversation" group therapy for aphasia. Specifically, an analysis of the discourse of clients and therapists was conducted to identify patterns across therapists and settings.…

This article provides an overview of 3 approaches to peer-mediated intervention that have been effective in improving the social and communicative interactions among young children with autism and other developmental disabilities and their classmates without disabilities. These empirically supported peer-mediated interventions involve teaching…