Attitudes Toward and Perceived Communicative Competence of Individuals with Aphasia Using Speech-Generating Devices.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of interface display and respondent group on listener attitudes toward and perceived communicative competence of persons with aphasia. The Attitudes Toward Nonspeaking Persons scale and the Communicative Competence Scale was used to measure listener attitudes and communicative competence, respectively. A 2 × 3 mixed factorial design was used.

A Visual Interactive Narrative Intervention (VINI) for aphasia education: Can digital applications administer augmented input to educate stroke survivors with aphasia?

Objective: Persons with aphasia (PWA) face additional barriers to proper healthcare due to inadequate patient education by health professionals unequipped to use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). The current study examines a digital application that evokes and sustains health information processing through AAC specifically aimed at increasing comprehension with augmented input (AI).

Methods: A digital application designed to educate PWA about their health condition was compared to a video-recorded doctor providing oral-only education.

Stroop interference and AQT cognitive speed may play complementary roles in differentiating dementias with frontal and posterior lesions.

Forty neurotypical adults (ages 65-74) were administered three different assessments, as follows: Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), A Quick Test of Cognitive Speed (AQT), and Stroop Color and Word Test. Correlation coefficients (Pearson r) indicated a significant but moderate association between MoCA scores and AQT dual-dimension processing speed (p < 0.01).

Effect of Number of Graphic Symbols, Levels, and Listening Conditions on Symbol Identification and Latency in Persons with Aphasia.

This study investigated the ability of persons with aphasia to complete a series of experimental tasks involving single symbol and subject-verb-object sentence identification on a speech-generating device (SGD) in the presence/absence of competing stimuli. In all, 10 persons with Broca's aphasia and 10 persons in the control group were compared on accuracy and response latency of symbol identification across three listening conditions. Persons with aphasia identified fewer symbols accurately and had longer response latencies than persons in the control group.

Perceived family resources based on number of members with ADHD.

Objective: This study examines how the number of family members with ADHD affects other family members' perceived resources.

Method: A total of 40 adolescents diagnosed with ADHD and their mothers, fathers, and adolescent siblings living in the household participated. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze family-level data from a total of 130 participants.

Student service learning and dementia: bridging classroom and clinical experiences.

University students in speech-language pathology and nursing were involved in a community service learning project with residents of a long-term care facility who had dementia. Nursing students were asked to interact and converse with residents to the best of their ability (control group, n = 28). Speech-language pathology students were instructed to design a personalized, multi-modality "connection kit" for residents based on the tenets of cognitive linguistic stimulation and facilitative styles of interaction, which were included within course content (experimental group, n = 25).

Production of graphic symbol sentences by individuals with aphasia: efficacy of a computer-based augmentative and alternative communication intervention.

The study employed a single-subject multiple baseline design to examine the ability of 9 individuals with severe Broca's aphasia or global aphasia to produce graphic symbol sentences of varying syntactical complexity using a software program that turns a computer into a speech output communication device. The sentences ranged in complexity from simple two-word phrases to those with morphological inflections, transformations, and relative clauses. Overall, results indicated that individuals with aphasia are able to access, manipulate, and combine graphic symbols to produce phrases and sentences of varying degrees of syntactical complexity.