Date of Defense

4-25-2019

Date of Graduation

4-2019

Department

Speech, Language and Hearing Science

First Advisor

Suma Devanga

Second Advisor

Laura Getty

Third Advisor

Kathryn Hillenbrand

Abstract

“Aphasia is a language disorder associated with brain injury, usually a stroke…that affects production and comprehension of language and the ability to read, write and calculate” (Robb, 2014). Aphasia affects not only language but everyday activities, participation, and the individuals’ psycho-social well-being (Cherney, Halper, Holland & Cole, 2008). Research on aphasia interventions have shown improvements in language on clinical tests, with limited generalization to every day communicative functions (e.g. Holland, 1998; Kagan et al., 2008; Simmons-Mackie et al., 2014).

We aimed to study generalization using a collaborative referencing intervention (Hengst, Duff & Dettmer, 2010) with Miguel -- a participant with chronic aphasia using a multiple-probe single-case experimental design. Data included five baseline sessions, 15 collaborative referencing treatment sessions (including 5 treatment-probes), five maintenance sessions at the Charles Van Riper Language, Speech, and Hearing Clinic and 15 corresponding home-visits at the client’s home. A 10-minute conversation probe was conducted between the client-clinician pair during baseline, treatment-probe and maintenance sessions, and between the client-spouse pair during 15 home-visits. All sessions were video-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed for interactional discourse resources (IDRs) to discover if there was an increase in communicative engagement within both settings (Hengst et al., 2016). The results from the analysis did not find a clear positive trend within IDRs across the study. Although a clear positive trend was not identified, a large number of IDRs was found across the study. This finding indicates communicative engagement within both the client-clinician sessions and the client-spouse sessions across the study. These findings supported clinical implications and future research directions to assist clinicians concerned with generalizability of language within their patients.

Access Setting

Honors Thesis-Restricted

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