Aphasia therapy is fascinating. Many speech therapists that I have met on my travels seem to agree. Aphasia therapy can be fascinatingly intimidating and enticing. If I list all the whys for this, you would never finish reading these comments. So I won’t. The individual with aphasia is dynamic. Changes related to time, location of lesion, healing, co-morbidities are a few that can keep the goal post moving. As a therapist and clinician supervisor, I have seen many patients with aphasia of various etiologies and severity levels. I had always thought that as therapists see more patients, treatment will improve. This is not always the case, according to therapists that have reached out to me for help with their patients. Over time I found myself steady and successful in my application of evidence based treatment. Patients progressed. I enjoy seeing new and seasoned clinicians find their groove too. When I first saw how WORDStim worked for a severely aphasic patient, I was so excited. From then, I strongly pursued the hope that WORDStim could play a part in language recovery for aphasic patients. Therapists who utilize WORDStim witness that language therapy including practice and production of sentences help patients with Aphasia improve internal strategies that assist with fluency of speech (Lee et.al., 2015). Even for the patient who is severe in case, there is a horizon for him with WORDStim. Therapists benefit from that, too. Reference: Lee, J., Yoshida & M.,Thompson, C. (2015). Grammatical Planning Units During Real-Time Sentence Production in Speakers With Agrammatic Aphasia and Healthy Speakers. Journal of Speech, Language, and hearing Research, 58, 1182-1194.
Ayana Webb, speech pathologist and founder of WORDStim.
