The Efficacy of "Chat Sheets" as a Conversation Tool For Communicative Access in Aphasia: A Single-Subject Study

Adults with aphasia are frequently denied communicative access in family events, discussions, and daily decision-making. Consequently, recent studies have investigated conversational language interventions for individuals with aphasia (IWA) and their families. Aphasiologists support the use of communication partner (CP) training as an intervention method—through which, people around the IWA learn to use strategies and resources to facilitate successful, interactive communication. While CP training alone can be effective, family members of an IWA may benefit from the use of a supplemental conversation tool to bridge the gap between strategy training and implementation. The purpose of this single-subject A1-B-A2 study was to investigate the efficacy of “Chat Sheets” as a visual tool for facilitating multi-modal communication and improved dyadic comprehension. One dyad (an IWA and his spouse) participated in the study. An initial CP training session was provided for the spouse focusing on Supportive Conversation for Adults with Aphasia (SCA) strategies (Kagan, 1999)—after which the dyad engaged in 10 video-recorded conversations throughout baseline, experimental, and final baseline probes. All conversations were scored by blind raters and an informal interview was conducted at the end of the study.