Development of Stimuli to Test Service Workers' Comprehension of People with Aphasia 

Presenter

Sumayah Mohamed

Group Members

Rachel L. Klock, Angela Murzin, Elizabeth Laughlin

Campus

UMass Amherst

Sponsor

Jennifer Mack, Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, UMass Amherst

Schedule

Session 5, 3:30 PM - 4:15 PM [Schedule by Time][Poster Grid for Time/Location]

Location

Poster Board A55, Campus Center Auditorium, Row 3 (A41-A60) [Poster Location Map]

Abstract

Aphasia is defined as an acquired language disorder caused by damage to the brain, affecting over 1 in 200 people in the United States. Many people with aphasia (PWA) experience difficulty communicating with others in a variety of settings. While the majority of research around aphasia rehabilitation focuses on people with aphasia, there is little research on the role that communication partners can and do play in interactions with PWA. Our research focuses specifically on service workers’s comprehension of speakers with aphasia. Communicating with service workers is crucial for people with aphasia to regain their independence and participate in everyday activities. 

Our experiment tests whether the use of aphasia ID cards can help service workers to better comprehend people with aphasia. Service workers will either be shown an aphasia ID card (experimental) or not (control), before listening to a recording of a person with moderate to severe aphasia making various service requests. The requests will include paraphasias, word retrieval errors, or disfluencies, breaks in fluent speech. The service worker will be presented with four pictures and will have to select the corresponding object that the speaker with aphasia is requesting. We hypothesize that when service workers are presented with an aphasia ID card, they will have improved comprehension of paraphasias and disfluencies. They will also have better knowledge of aphasia and a better attitude towards these service interactions. Ultimately, our findings will help to support people with aphasia’s self-advocacy and agency when participating in daily tasks.

Keywords

aphasia , service request, aphasia rehabilitation, communication partner

Research Area

Neuroscience and Cognitive Science

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