Defense Date

6-14-2013

Graduation Date

Summer 2013

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

thesis

Degree Name

MS

Department

Speech-Language Pathology (SLP)

School

Rangos School of Health Sciences

Committee Chair

Sarah Wallace

Committee Member

Diane Williams

Committee Member

Caterina Staltari

Keywords

Aphasia, Cognitive flexibility, Multimodal, Semantic, Severe, Switching

Abstract

Treatment for severe aphasia includes teaching alternative modalities to improve communicative effectiveness by circumventing deficits in verbal expression. Traditionally, alternative communication modalities are trained separately to augment or replace verbal output. However, adults with aphasia often have executive function deficits, specifically deficits in cognitive flexibility, which affect the communicative flexibility of the individual. The result is an inability to switch to a previously learned alternative modality when a communication breakdown occurs. This study explored a combined semantic + multimodal communication program (S+MCP) for an individual with severe aphasia and coexisting semantic deficits. The effect of S+MCP on his ability to switch between modalities when an initial communication attempt failed was examined during a referential communication task and administration of the CADL-2 with modified scoring. The participant demonstrated increased switching behavior between modalities during both tasks, and increased use of combined modalities (e.g., verbal plus gesture).

Format

PDF

Language

English

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