Purpose: The three variants of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) differ in clinical presentation, underlying brain pathology, and clinical course, which stresses the need for early differentiation. However, brief cognitive tests that validly distinguish between all PPA variants are lacking. The Sydney Language Battery (SYDBAT) is a promising…

Purpose: The impact of stimulus-level psycholinguistic variables and personlevel semantic and phonological processing skills on treatment outcomes in individuals with aphasia requires further examination to inform clinical decision making in treatment prescription and stimuli selection. This study investigated the influence of stimulus-level…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to address an emerging issue in rehabilitation counseling: The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on people with aphasia (PWA). Method: Based upon a review of the literature this article provides an overview of (a) COVID-19 and emergent aphasia-related disability, (b) COVID-19 effects on stroke and aphasia…

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…

In this paper, we describe technological advances for supporting persons with aphasia in philosophical dialogues about personally relevant and contestable questions. A computer game-based application for iPads is developed and researched through Living Lab inspired workshops in order to promote the target group's communicative participation during…

Background: Achieving activity participation goals is a key factor in quality of life (QOL) for people with aphasia (PWA), but expressing participation goals can be difficult for many of them. Proxy reports by caregivers may not accurately reflect the interests and participation goals of PWA, and discrepancies in these goals between PWA and their…

Background: In order to conduct research that is meaningful to speech and language therapy services and their patients, it is often desirable to conduct the research within routine clinical services. This can require considerable time and commitment from speech and language therapists (SLTs). It is therefore important to understand the impact that…

There is a need for intervention to support friendship for people living with aphasia. The purpose of this article is to describe a stakeholder engagement process that involved researchers, clinicians, people living with aphasia, and care partners to inform such intervention. Through reflection and firsthand accounts of non-university-based…

Background: A number of practice barriers (e.g., time constraints, patient comorbidities and competing demands) exist as regards the evidence-based assessment of adult language within the acute hospital setting. There is need for an evidence-based, diagnostically validated, adaptable, comprehensive and efficient aphasia assessment. The Brisbane…

Older adults show a progressive cognitive decline, and although language processing appears to resist advancing age, studies in word retrieval report that elders show important difficulties. Previous research reports that such failures increase from age 70 years, which suggests that during the fourth age word retrieval would exhibit even stronger…

Purpose: Anomia, or word-finding difficulty, is a prevalent and persistent feature of aphasia, a neurogenic language disorder affecting millions of people in the United States. Anomia assessments are essential for measuring performance and monitoring outcomes in clinical settings. This study aims to evaluate the reliability of response time (RT)…

Background: People with aphasia rely on gesture more than healthy controls to get their message across, but use a limited range of gesture types. Gesture therapy is thus a potential avenue of intervention for people with aphasia. However, currently no gesture assessment evaluates how they use gesture. Such a tool could inform therapy targets and…

Purpose: Pupillary responses captured via pupillometry (measurement of pupillary dilation and constriction during the performance of a cognitive task) are psychophysiological indicators of cognitive effort, attention, arousal, and resource engagement. Pupillometry may be a promising tool for enhancing our understanding of the relationship between…

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…

Background: Communication partner training (CPT) for people with aphasia (PWA) is an evidence-based approach that supports patients' abilities to effectively communicate with their healthcare providers. Efforts to create efficient training programmes, which aim to instil appropriate practices and attitudes prior to working with patients, have the…