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Effects of storytelling mode on partners' communicative ratings of an adult with aphasia

Joanne Patti Lasker, University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Abstract

Storytelling is an important form of communication for older people. It helps them establish and maintain social roles and social closeness. People who have aphasia are often unable to participate in storytelling interactions. The field of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) offers alternatives for individuals with aphasia to participate in storytelling. This study explores potential partners' attitudes to three different modes of storytelling. In this study, videotapes were created in which an actor with aphasia communicated autobiographical stories to a partner using Natural Speech, an AAC Notebook, and an AAC Digitized Speech device. Peers, family members, and speech-language pathologists viewed these videotapes and completed ratings on five dependent measures--communicative competence of the communicator with aphasia, storytelling effectiveness of the communicator, their comfort level, their willingness to participate, and their understanding of the story. They also completed a forced-choice ranking task in which they ranked the three storytelling modes in order of their personal preference for communicating with individuals with aphasia. They then participated in a single focus group discussion led by the investigator for the purpose of clarifying the issues that motivated their ratings. It was hypothesized that family members and peers would view stories told through natural speech more favorably and would rate the dependent variables highest in the Natural Speech mode. Additionally, it was expected that speech-language pathologists would rate the dependent variables highest in the AAC Digitized Speech mode. Attitude ratings based on videotapes were expected to be consistent with rankings in the forced-choice ranking task. Results showed that peers, speech-language pathologists, and family members all rated the AAC Digitized Speech mode most favorably in the videotape viewing task. Significant between communication-partner-group differences were found in the forced-choice ranking task, with peers choosing AAC Digitized Speech as most preferred and speech-language pathologists choosing Natural Speech as their most preferred method of storytelling. Family members selected Natural Speech as their most preferred method. The qualitative results derived from focus group discussions offer possible explanations for these results and are discussed.

Subject Area

Speech therapy|Cellular biology

Recommended Citation

Lasker, Joanne Patti, "Effects of storytelling mode on partners' communicative ratings of an adult with aphasia" (1997). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9823377.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9823377

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