Interactional Aphasiology Lab
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Aphasia is a communication disorder usually caused by stroke. People with aphasia may have difficulty speaking and understanding others. Aphasia does not change who the person is. Aphasia does not affect intelligence.
Think of the hundreds of things we all do every day that require us to talk to others; ordering food at a restaurant, having a casual chat with a friend, talking to your significant other about their day, talking to a doctor during a medical appointment, calling a company to find out why your electricity bill is so high, participating in therapy, attending a work meeting, making vacation plans with friends…all these and other many other daily activities are built around the communication activity of CONVERSATION. People with aphasia tell researchers and SLPs that they want to be able to talk to others and have a conversations. They also tell us that having aphasia makes conversation difficult. This limits the activities and life roles they can take part in.
The Aphasia CHAT (Conversation Helps All Take part) Lab is part of the Communication and Disorders Department at Bowling Green State University. Our research focuses on aphasia and conversation. We want to support people and families living with aphasia so that everyone has a chance to talk, be heard and to understand others. We know that if we empower people with aphasia and their communication partners to be better at having conversations, people with aphasia will be able to participate in life more fully and return to many of the activities they enjoyed before they had strokes.
Our lab is located on the first floor of the Health and Human Services building on the Bowling Green Campus, room 185. Dr. Archer’s office is 250, located on the second floor. Our research team includes undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students, as well as collaborators within the department, across campus, and at other institutions.
Doctoral Students
Nora Gulick is a second year master’s student in the doctoral-bridge program. Her thesis is examining the unique functions of conversational moves used in conversation-based group therapy for people with aphasia.
Most activities of daily living, recreational activities, community events and relationships are built on conversation. If you cannot express yourself and understand others in conversations, it is difficult to live a full, satisfying life. The Aphasia CHAT Lab examines different therapies designed to help people with aphasia be effective communicators during conversation. We focus on empowering people with aphasia to use what ever resources they can (gesture, pointing, writing, drawing, pantomiming, humming, using pictures on your phone, WHATEVER!) to participate in conversations. We also focus on equipping conversation partners with the skills they need to contribute to successful and enjoyable conversations.
Aphasia groups are groups that get together regularly. These groups are usually led by a facilitator who helps people with aphasia have a group conversation. These groups enable people with aphasia to support one another as they deal with the challenges of living with aphasia. They are also an opportunity to practice conversation skills. We know from research that these groups can improve mental health and increase communication skills. In the lab, we are focused on figuring out why these groups work. We also want to come up with ways to make the groups even more effective. We want to develop materials that new facilitators can use if they want to start their own group.
Communication is the foundation of every relationship. So, when someone has aphasia, their communication difficulties can make it difficult to keep their friendships strong and active. This is the reason why many people with aphasia are socially isolated and suffer from chronic loneliness and boredom. Being lonely doesn’t only cause psychological difficulties and distress; loneliness makes health problems like high blood pressure and mobility issues worse. Past research has shown that if friends knew a little bit about aphasia and how to communicate with their friends, friendships would probably not peter out. The AphasiaCHATLab is engaged in research on how to keep people with aphasia connected to the friends they had at the time of the stroke.
Research by ethnographers and anthropologists suggests that we are skilled problem solvers and can effectively carry out a wide range of complex tasks, because the cognitive load associated with such tasks are distributed amongst humans as well as external devices. By applying the results and methods developed during systematic, real-world based studies of human cognition to clinical disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and other amnestic deficits, therapists may gain useful insights into embedded intervention approaches that will empower clients to live with greater independence.
Journal articles
Archer, B. E., Azios, J., Douglas, N., Strong, K., Worrall, L., & Simmons-Mackie, N. (Accepted). “I could not talk…She did everything…She’s now my sister”: People with aphasia’s perspectives on friends who stuck around.. American Journal of Speech Language Pathology.
Azios, J., Lee, J., Archer, B. E., & Elman, R. (Accepted). Online Aphasia Groups: Navigating Issues of Voice and Identity. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology.
Daniels, Derek, Michael Boyle, and Brent E. Archer. (2023) Stuttering, Intersectionality, and Identity: A Qualitative Analysis of the Experiences of LGBTQ+ Individuals Who Stutter. Language Speech and Hearing Services in Schools, 54 (1)
Leaman, M. C., & Archer, B. (2023). Choosing discourse types that align with person-centered goals in aphasia rehabilitation: A clinical tutorial. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups, 8(2), 254-273.
Strong, K. A., Douglas, N. F., Johnson, R., Silverman, M., Azios, J. H., & Archer, B. (2023). Stakeholder-engaged research: What our friendship in aphasia team learned about processes and pitfalls. Topics in Language Disorders, 43(1), 43-56.
Gravelin, A. C., Archer, B., Oddo, M., & Whitfield, J. A. (2023). Reliability of a Linguistic Segmentation Procedure Specified by Systemic Functional Linguistics to Examine Extemporaneous Speech. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 66(4), 1280-1290.
Azios, J. H., Strong, K. A., Archer, B., Douglas, N. F., Simmons-Mackie, N., & Worrall, L. (2022). Friendship matters: A research agenda for aphasia. Aphasiology, 36(3), 317-336.
Douglas, N. F., Archer, B., Azios, J. H., Strong, K. A., Simmons-Mackie, N., & Worrall, L. (2022). A scoping review of friendship intervention for older adults: lessons for designing intervention for people with aphasia. Disability and Rehabilitation, 1-20.
Leaman, Marion, and Brent E. Archer. (2022) “If You Just Stay with Me and Wait ... You’ll Get an Idea of What I'm Saying": The Communicative Benefits of Time for Conversational Self-Repair for People with Aphasia. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology
Strong, Katie et al. and Archer, B. (2022) Stakeholder-Engaged Research: What Our Team Learned about Processes, Pitfalls and a PROMising New Measure While Investigating Friendship in Aphasia. Topics in Language Disorders, 43 (1): 43-56
Azios, Jamie, Brent E. Archer, and Jaime Lee. (2021) Understanding Mechanisms of Change after Conversation-Focused Intervention in Aphasia: A Conversation Analysis Investigation. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders (2021)
Leaman, Marion H., and Brent E. Archer. (2021) “Towards Empowering Conversational Agency in Aphasia: Understanding Mechanisms of Topic Initiation in People With and Without Aphasia.” America Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 33 (10):1248–1269.
Archer, B., Azios, J. H., Gulick, N., & Tetnowski, J. (2021). Facilitating participation in conversation groups for aphasia. Aphasiology, 35(6), 764-782.
Azios, J. H., Archer, B., & Lee, J. B. (2021). Detecting behavioural change in conversation: Procedures and preliminary data. Aphasiology, 35(7), 961-983.
Presentations
Ryan Husak, Marion Leaman, Brent Archer, Louise Keegan, Christa Akers, Eleanor Gulick, Rimke Groenewold, Zaneta Mok. The USeFuL Project: Introducing Systemic Functional Linguistics for Assessing and Treating Neurogenic Communication Disorders. Session accepted to be presented at the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association Convention, Boston, Massachusetts. 2022.
Jamie Azios, Brent Archer, Katie Strong, Natalie Douglas, Nina Simmons-Mackie and Linda Worrall. She made an effort to come to me when I was at my worst point": Helping people with aphasia keep their friends. Session presented at the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics Congress in Auckland, New Zealand. 2023.
Brent Archer, Natalie Douglas, Katie Strong, Jamie Azios, Nina Simmons-Mackie and Linda Worrall. Friendship-focused programming as a part of aphasia rehabilitation: Research findings and next steps. Session presented at the Aphasia Access Leadership Summit, Durham, North Carolina. 2023
Brent Archer and Marion Leaman. Why monologues and conversation are not interchangeable in aphasia rehabilitation: A nuts and bolts tutorial. Session presented at the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2022.
Jamie Azios, Brent Archer, Katie Strong, Natalie Douglas, Nina Simmons-Mackie and Linda Worrall. Stand by Me: Supporting the Maintenance of Friendship in Aphasia. Session presented at the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2022.
Poster Presentations
Jamie Azios, Mary McMahon, Brent Archer, Katie Strong, Natalie Douglas, Linda Worrall and Nina Simmons-Mackie. Searching for a Connection: How People with Aphasia use Technology to Maintain Friendships. Poster accepted to be presented at the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association Convention, Boston, Massachusetts. 2022.
Katie Strong, Natalie Douglas, Brent Archer, Jamie Azios, Nina Simmons-Mackie and Linda Worrall. Friends are key players in comprehensive aphasia treatment. Poster to be presented at the Nordic Aphasiology Conference, Reykjavik, Iceland. 2023.
Brent Archer, Marion Leaman, Carole Dowe and David Dowe. Frustration Indeed! People with Aphasia Need Time! Aphasia Access Leadership Summit. Durham, North Carolina. 2023.
Brent Archer, Marion Leaman, Ryan Husak, Eleanor Gulick, Christa Ackers, Rimke Groenewold, Louise Keegan and Zaneta Mok. Applying systemic functional linguistics to neurogenic communication disorders. Aphasia Access Leadership Summit. Durham, North Carolina. 2023
Mary Oddo, Brent Archer and Theresa Adams. Perspectives of People with Aphasia who Engage in Disability Activism. Aphasia Access Leadership Summit. Durham, North Carolina. 2023
Derek Daniels, Michael Boyle and Brent Archer. LGBTQ+ individuals who stutter: A qualitative analysis of psychosocial experiences. Poster presented at the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2022.
Anna Gravelin, Brent Archer and Abbie Stevens. Examining reliability of a theory-based extemporaneous speech segmentation approach: An application to Parkinson Disease. Poster presented at the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2022.
Noa Kossman, Cindy Lin, Marion Leaman and Brent Archer. Sign of the times: Gestures by people with aphasia during non-pressured self-repair in conversation. Poster presented at the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2022.
Aaron Witt, Tim Brackenbury, Brent Archer and Lori Hutton. Using animal assisted therapy and enhanced milieu teaching to facilitate language growth in an autistic child. Poster presented at the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association Convention, New Orleans, Louisiana. 2022.
Updated: 11/22/2023 11:12AM