What Conversation Topics are Meaningful to People with Aphasia?

Specialists in rehabilitation and speech-communication disorders from hospitals, universities, and the National Health Service Foundation in the United Kingdom have conducted a study to identify conversation topics of greatest meaningfulness to persons with aphasia.  Their key motivation was to provide a basis, empirically, for choosing vocabulary to target in therapies for word-finding in conversation, observing…

How artificial intelligence (AI) is used in aphasia rehabilitation

Aphasia researchers and computer scientists from universities, hospitals, and research centers in Montréal and Paris have collaborated on a scoping review of the uses of artificial intelligence in service of aphasia rehabilitation during the years 1990 to 2023.  Their study objectives were – firstly – to describe how AI is being used to advance the…

Research Gaps in Intensive Comprehensive Aphasia Programs

Aphasia researchers in the communication disorders programs at Idaho State University and University of Montana have published a qualitative study of research gaps in the available literature investigating benefits to communicatively challenged participants in Intensive Comprehensive Aphasia Programs (ICAP).  The goals of this investigation are to characterize such gaps from the perspective of international implementers…

Telepractice in the treatment of speech and voice disorders

An interdisciplinary team of specialists from the leading hospitals and medical schools of the Boston area, with expertise in communication disorders, clinical service delivery, and telemedicine have published an article identifying and assessing opportunities and issues around incorporating emerging technologies in the clinical management of voice-, speech-, language- and communication-disorders.  The goals of their publication…

The Outcomes of Remote Administration of Combined Aphasia and Apraxia of Speech Treatment

Investigators from the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Utah report results from single-subject experimental research into outcome improvements in three persons with aphasia (PWA) who remotely received Combined Aphasia and Apraxia of Speech Treatment (CAAST). The goals of the research were to document outcome changes – in terms of acquisition,…

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…

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…

Effects of melodic intonation therapy in patients with chronic nonfluent aphasia

Researchers from the Departments of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have published a study of how persons with large left-hemisphere lesions and chronic non-fluent aphasia respond – behaviorally and neuroplastically – to intensive Melodic Intonation Therapy (MIT). The goals of this proof-of-concept study are to characterize – following…

Understanding the impact of group therapy on health-related quality of life of people with aphasia

https://vimeo.com/765759673#t=0 Researchers from three disciplines at Canada’s University of Alberta – Speech-Language Pathology, Physical Therapy, and Nursing – studied the effects of participation in group therapy on the health-related quality of life in persons with aphasia. The goals were to establish, on the basis of a scoping review of published research, current evidence regarding 2…

Applying adaptive distributed practice to self-managed computer-based anomia treatment: a single-case experimental design.

Researchers from Northwestern University’s Center for Education in Health Sciences and the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders studied therapeutic effects of a computer-based application for self-managed practice of verbal naming in two persons with moderate chronic aphasia. Flashcard software was used to present either a drawing or a written description of…