How AI Language Models can Enhance or Impede Communication for AAC Users

Computer scientists and artificial intelligence investigators working for Google Research collaborated with specialists in communication sciences and disorders at the University College of London and at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Institute of Health Professions to investigate incorporating chatbot technologies – such as OpenAI’S ChatGPT – into Speech Generating Devices for AAC technology users. They focused on…

Conversation analysis of texting exchanges in aphasia

Aphasia researchers from Chicago, Virginia, and Louisiana have collaborated on a study of the structures and strategies employed by persons with aphasia (PWA), and their neurotypical communication partners, during text messaging. The current investigators apply the investigative framework developed originally for Conversation Analysis of verbal face-to-face communications, later usefully applied to analyze also texting communications.…

Two-Year Longitudinal Evaluation of Community Aphasia Center Participation

Investigators at Columbia University in New York City, and at Jacksonville University in Florida, have published the results of a two-year longitudinal study of benefits accruing to persons with aphasia (PWA) through participation in offerings at a community-based Aphasia Center. The goals of the study were to document changes in confrontation naming, structured discourse performance,…

From the Inner Circle to Rebuilding Social Networks

Researchers from Speech Pathology, within the School of Allied Health at Australia’s La Trobe University, have published the results of a longitudinal investigation into the impacts of acquired aphasia on the social networks of stroke survivors. The study focuses on documenting how communicative deficits disrupt the close personal relationships of person with aphasia (PWA) following…

The Narrative-Based Evolution of a Stakeholder-Engaged Research Team

In work partly supported by an Engagement Award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, six speech-language pathologists (SLP) with an interest in understanding aphasia recovery processes collaborated with a Ph.D. stroke survivor with aphasia to investigate how close attention to the post-stroke biographical narratives of persons with aphasia (PWA) – as well as of investigative…

Perceived Factors That Facilitate or Prevent the Use of Speech-Generating Devices in Bilingual Individuals With Aphasia

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) from the academy, a clinical service-delivery business, and the AAC manufacturer Lingraphica collaborated on a study of perceptions of practicing SLP clinicians regarding the use of speech-generating devices (SGDs) in rehabilitating bilingual clients with aphasia.  Their aim was to identify and characterize the main factors perceived by respondents either to hinder, or…

The role of verbal short-term memory in complex sentence comprehension: an observational study on aphasia

Researchers from universities and medical facilities in Italy (Milan, Trento) and France (Paris) have collaborated to compare comprehension performance in persons with agrammatic and fluent aphasias when presented with sentences of varying syntactic structures and challenge levels.  The researchers focused on how phonological short-term memory (pSTM) interacts with syntactic complexity to affect sentence comprehension in…

Design considerations for aphasia rehabilitation technologies

Aphasia researchers from Lingraphica, Vanderbilt University, and Nevada State College have collaborated on a study of factors affecting the therapeutic engagement decisions and success patterns of a person with moderate Broca’s aphasia and severe apraxia of speech engaged in autonomous practice of stimulated word repetition. The researchers were interested in particular in: [1] effects of…

A Review of International Experience for Telerehabilitation of Post-stroke Patients with Aphasia and Cognitive Problems

Rehabilitation researchers from two Medical Universities and a University of Science and Technology in Moscow, Russia have reviewed articles on telerehabilitation for persons with post-stroke aphasia and cognitive problems. Their interest stems from service delivery challenges caused by pandemic-related restrictions on meeting in person, as well as difficulties in reaching patients at remote locations. The…

Predicting recovery in acute poststroke aphasia

Aphasiology researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the University of South Carolina have analyzed relationships in research data to advance understandings of deficit and recovery patterns in persons with stroke-induced aphasia during the first 6 months after stroke. Specific goals of this work were to relate observed improvements in confrontation naming and spontaneous speech performance…