Conversational Success: A Key to Quality of Life for People with Aphasia

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Conversational Success A Key to Quality of Life
for People with Aphasia Gail Ramsberger1 Akira
Miyake2 Barbara Rende1 1Speech, Language
Hearing Sciences, UCB, 2Psychology, UCB

• WHAT IS APHASIA?
• Disorder of linguistic cognition that interferes
  with processing of sounds, words,
  syntax/morphology, and discourse effects are
  seen in reading, writing, speaking and listening
• Caused by brain injury
• 80,000 individuals acquire aphasia
  each year in the US
• More than one million people are currently living
  with aphasia.

• WHAT PREDICTS CONVERSATIONAL SUCCESS?
• Interestingly, performances on several
  nonlinguistic tests better predict conversational
  success than measures of language impairment.

• WHY WE STUDY THE CONVERSATION OF PEOPLE WITH
  APHASIA.
• Conversation is the form of
  communication through
  which
  most information transfer takes
  
  place in everyday
  life.
• Competence in conversation
  is
  essential for autonomous
  functioning in
  society.
• Competence in conversation is
  also
  essential for the recruitment and maintenance of
  a social support network, a significant factor in
  quality of life post-onset of aphasia (McIntosh
  Ramsberger, 1996)

• IMPLICATIONS OF OUR FINDINGS
• Fixing what is broken in aphasia (i.e., language)
  may not lead to improved functional outcomes.
• Focusing on nonlinguistic cognition (executive
  functions) in communication tasks may be a key
  to improving functional outcomes.

• WORK IN PROGRESS IDEAS FOR THE FUTURE
• We are currently identifying specific
  conversational behaviors and we are beginning to
  look at the relationships between conversational
  success, nonlinguistic cognition and specific
  behaviors that are used in conversation.
• This research will form the basis for future
  development of assessment tools and intervention
  programs.

• POTENTIAL ROLES FOR TECHNOLOGY
• Streamlining the coding and analysis of video
  data.
• Development of clinically applicable
  computer-based tools for assessment and treatment
  of executive functions.
• Development of tools to support the training and
  implementation of conversational strategies known
  to increase success.