Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Indirectly And Directly Involved Students' Perspectives On Multi-Modal Communication Treatment In Persons With Aphasia, Emily Lewis

Honors Theses

Our study investigated the perspectives of students who were either directly or indirectly involved in the Multi-modal communication treatment (MCT) sessions for persons with aphasia. Two undergraduate and two graduate students were recruited from the University of Mississippi who participated in the MCT sessions. We collected their perspectives through semi-structured interviews and used thematic qualitative analysis to analyze our data. We reported themes from the indirectly involved students and the directly involved students and compared how the themes were similar and different between the indirectly and directly involved students. We discussed that both direct and indirect experience for clinical therapy …

Investigating The Impact Of Nonlinguistic Cognitive Reserve On Naming Pre- And Post-Treatment, Lillian Jarold

Theses and Dissertations

Background: The relationship between linguistic and nonlinguistic cognition in persons with aphasia is complex and often debated in the literature. Furthermore, the impact of nonlinguistic cognition on aphasia treatment outcomes is unclear. The present study sought 1) to examine the relationship between WAIS scores and performance on a test of naming and 2) to examine the relationship between WAIS scores and change scores on a test of naming between baseline and post-treatment in persons with chronic aphasia.

Method: This retrospective study utilized data from participants (N=102) who were recruited for a multi-center cross-over trial (POLAR: Predicting Outcomes of Language Rehabilitation). …

Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation As An Adjuvant For Nonfluent Aphasia Therapy: A Proof-Of-Concept Study, Lynsey Mcgrath Keator

Theses and Dissertations

Identifying effective and efficient rehabilitation tools is crucial to improve language outcomes for persons living with chronic aphasia. Speech entrainment has proved to be particularly successful in improving speech output in nonfluent aphasia. It is hypothesized that, for patients with aberrant oscillatory synchronization between anterior and posterior language regions of the left hemisphere, speech entrainment may act as an external gaiting mechanism to bolster an impaired efference copy and improve synchrony between these regions. Theoretical and empirical evidence supports this idea that speech production relies on anterior-posterior connectivity in the left hemisphere.

Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) delivers low, periodically-alternating …

The Effects Of Spoken Self-Disclosure Scripts On Nonaphasic Listeners' Perceptions Of People With Aphasia, Colleen B. Ward

Masters Theses

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of spoken self-disclosure scripts on nonaphasic listeners’ perceptions of people with aphasia (PWA). Self-disclosure is a tool that PWA can utilize in the event that they want a conversation partner to know of their communication disorder. However, limited research has been conducted on the effects of aphasia self-disclosure or whether it affects perceptions of PWA from neurotypical communication partners. If self-disclosure is determined to make a positive impact on a communicative interaction, it could be grounds for encouraging PWA who are interested to develop a self-disclosure script or use …

The Impact Of Background Noise On The Communicative Experience Of People With Mild To Moderate Aphasia: A Qualitative Study, Riley Robertson Hegewald

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined how retelling stories with a variety different background noise conditions affected the communicative experiences of people with aphasia (PWA). Participants included 11 adults with mild to moderate aphasia and 11 age- and gender-matched controls. Participants participated in a semi-structured interview immediately following the experimental measure where they were asked open-ended questions regarding their experience retelling stories and how those experiences related to their everyday lives. Results revealed three themes related to how participants responded to communicating in noise: (a) cognitive reactions, (b) emotional reactions, and (c) social reactions. The findings suggest that PWA exert more effort when …

The Nature Of Word Errors And Response Time In Individuals With Aphasia, Alexandra M. Georges

ETD Archive

Anomia is a relevant language deficit secondary to aphasia that is treated in the speech-language pathologist profession. Most aphasia diagnoses utilize aspects of confrontational naming tasks during speech therapy or testing. This study investigated the nature of word errors and the response time (RT) in persons with aphasia (PWA). Six individuals, three with nonfluent and three with fluent aphasia were asked to name objects in four common categories (occupational tools, everyday objects, food, and clothing) presented under two conditions (1) picture objects on a computer screen and (2) real physical objects. To measure RT and word error, participants were instructed …

Exploring Discourse Markers As A Treatment Outcome Measure For Aphasia, Anna K. Cedoz

Masters Theses

Discourse Markers (DMs) are communicative tools or resources that people use to organize conversations. The use of DMs among individuals with aphasia has been documented to support their communicative competence (Simmons-Mackie & Damico, 1996). Further research on the use of DMs by individuals with aphasia has been limited. The current study features a secondary analysis using existing data from Devanga (2020), which studied the effects of Collaborative Referencing Intervention (CRI; Hengst et al., 2010) on three participants with chronic aphasia. This study analyzed 18 conversation probes from one participant across baseline, treatment, and maintenance phases with clinician and spouse partners. …

An Exploratory Study Of Conversational Discourse Produced By Persons With Aphasia Using Speech Function Analysis, Christa M. Akers

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Casual conversation is essential to everyday life. Because of their language impairment, most people with stroke-induced aphasia have trouble engaging in social interactions and may, as a result, experience a decrease in psychosocial well-being. There is a great need, therefore, to identify the interventions most likely to improve the everyday talk of individuals affected by aphasia. Approaches to intervention that aim to improve the social participation and communicative success of people with aphasia during real-life interactions, known as conversation-based treatment, have increased in popularity.

When delivered in a group setting, conversation-based treatments have been shown to increase scores on standardized …

Communication-Related Quality Of Life: Perspectives Of People With Aphasia And Speech-Language Pathology Students, Ethan Kristek

All Theses, Dissertations, and Capstone Projects

Physiological and psychosocial communication components impact communication-related quality of life for people with aphasia. This study aimed to understand how these components were addressed in a university clinic speech-language pathology program. Mixed-methods with inductive coding of interviews and documentation data were used to develop a description of communication-related quality of life, including perspectives of people with aphasia and graduate student participants. Qualitative findings revealed three trends: therapy which aids the ability to communicate, connections with additional people with aphasia, and supportive environments emerged from people with aphasia data. Three trends emerged: communicating effectively, a naturalistic environment, and individualization were shown …