On-line – Self-Directed Learning

Acknowledge Competence

People with aphasia need others to believe they are competent and have more understanding and social skills than may be apparent.

Acknowledging competence can be through a tone of voice that is natural, choosing adult or complex topics for discussion, or integrating techniques into natural talk. Helpful strategies include:

• Saying “I know that you know” at appropriate times.
• Attribute communication breakdowns to your limitations as a communicator, “You know I’m not good at explaining these things clearly!”
• Deal openly when you have to communicate with a partner to obtain or give information.

Despite best efforts, there will be times when communication breaks down – it is valid and comforting to acknowledge the shared experience of being frustrated.

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On-line – Self-Directed Learning

Communication Tools: Communicative Access & SCA™

Supported Conversation for Adults With Aphasia (SCA™) is a program that uses a set of techniques to encourage conversation when working with someone with aphasia through:

• Spoken and written keywords
• Body language and gestures
• Hand drawings
• Detailed pictographs

SCA™ is designed to help people who “know more than they can say” express their opinions and feelings in a way that makes them feel valued and heard. Through the program’s techniques, conversation partners such as family members, doctors, nurses, or friends, can help break down the communication barrier and help people with aphasia re-join life’s conversations.

The goals of Supported Conversation for Adults With Aphasia are:

• Acknowledge the competence of the adult with aphasia.
• Help the adult with aphasia to reveal his or her competence.

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Off-Site Training

We welcome opportunities to discuss taking our Supported Conversation for Adults with Aphasia (SCA) workshops to you. We will review your particular learning objectives and timeline, suggest the workshops that fit best and then provide a quote that will include requirements and costs to make this happen.

We’re heading to McGill University to do a 3-Day Training event in September, but are happy to consider new opportunities in 2016!

To discuss off-site training options, contact Marisca Baldwin, Education and Learning Coordinator at 416-226-3636, ext. 23 or training@aphasia.ca

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On-site – Professional Training

The Aphasia Institute offers training sessions for health care professionals on how to work with clients with aphasia and to help them overcome communication barriers. Health care professionals will be shown how to apply training techniques to clinical situations such as assessment, counselling, group therapy and working with clients and their communication partners.

Resources, materials and manuals are provided in many of the workshops. All sessions are accredited courses as approved by the Continuing Education Board of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA).

To register, contact Marisca Baldwin, Education and Learning Coordinator at 416-226-3636, ext. 23 or training@aphasia.ca.

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Volunteer Opportunities for Students

Our Conversation Program is an ideal opportunity for students who are pursuing a degree in Speech and Language Pathology. However, due to the high number of student applicants, we accept a fixed number of students at each entry point into the program. We therefore have a highly competitive process for student applicants. If you require a clinical reference from our Speech and Language Pathologist as part of the application process for Graduate Studies, please ask our Coordinator of Volunteer Services about our specific requirements for Clinical References.

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Volunteer Information Session

Monthly information sessions provide an opportunity for us to present the wide range of volunteer opportunities, provide a “big picture” of our programs and then allow you to “interview” us to ensure that we can provide what you are looking for in a volunteer experience.

Volunteer Orientation Sessions typically occur on the last Friday of each month. They start at 2:00pm and are generally one hour in length. These sessions provide information about our volunteer opportunities, expectations of our volunteers, and what you can expect from us. They are highly recommended if you are considering applying for a volunteer position at the Aphasia Institute.

www.aphasia.ca

Please contact Shannon Hill, Coordinator, Volunteer Services at 416 226-3636 x17 to reserve your spot at one of the following 2:00 p.m.

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How do I get started?

We value the long-standing commitment and dedication our volunteers bring to our centre. We require that volunteers make a one year commitment typically consisting of a weekly 3-hour shift.

• Attend one of our Volunteer Information Sessions.
• Download and complete the volunteer application form.
• Submit your completed form to the Coordinator of Volunteer Services.
• The Coordinator of Volunteer Services will contact you to arrange an interview.

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What do Volunteers Do?

Conversation facilitation:

Working with groups of 4 – 6 people with aphasia, volunteers enable members to interact, engage, challenge and develop amazing conversations. Always working in partnership with another co-facilitator, your role is to provide communication techniques specific to the members with aphasia, while also taking part in the conversation. This is an integral position in our program and a great starting place for new volunteers.

Other volunteer opportunities include:

Painting/Creative Program Assistant; Fitness Assistant; Book Group Co-facilitator; Introductory Program Facilitators; One-to-One Computer Facilitator; Outreach Home-Visit Communication Facilitators.

There are also positions available in the areas of research, administration, fundraising, and governance.

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Conclusions

Our health-care systems are undergoing change and, as a result, so are our professions. How we allow this change to affect our clinical practice, our research directions, and our response to consumer advocacy is up to us. We need to educate policy-makers that being fiscally responsible means having a consumer-driven model of intervention focusing on interventions that make real-life differences and minimize the consequences of disease and injury.

While it is clear that the implicit motivation underlying all clinical and research efforts in aphasia is related to increased participation in life, the path to achieving that goal is often indirect. Because LPAA makes life goals primary and explicit, it holds promise as an approach in which such goals are attainable. We invite other speech-language pathologists to join us in discussing and developing life participation approaches to aphasia.

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The Core Values Of LPAA

LPAA is structured around five core values that serve as guides to assessment, intervention, and research.

The Explicit Goal Is Enhancement of Life Participation

In the LPAA approach, the first focus of the client, clinician, and policy-maker is to assess the extent to which persons affected by aphasia are able to achieve life participation goals, and the extent to which the aphasia hinders the attainment of these desired outcomes. The second focus is to improve short-term and long-term participation in life.

All Those Affected by Aphasia Are Entitled to Service

LPAA supports all those affected directly by aphasia, including immediate family and close associates of the adult with aphasia. The LPAA approach holds that it is essential to build protected communities within society where persons with aphasia are able not only to participate but are valued as participants. Therefore, intervention may involve changing broader social systems to make them more accessible to those affected by aphasia.

The Measures of Success Include Documented Life-Enhancement Changes

The LPAA approach calls for the use of outcome measures that assess quality of life and the degree to which those affected by aphasia meet their life participation goals.

Without a cause to communicate, we believe, there is no practical need for communication. Therefore, treatment focuses on a reason to communicate as much as on communication repair. In so doing, treatment attends to each consumer’s feelings, relationships, and activities in life.

Both Personal and Environmental Factors Are Targets of Intervention

Disruption of daily life for individuals affected by aphasia (including those who do not have aphasia themselves) is evident on two levels: personal (internal) and environmental (external). Intervention consists of constantly assessing, weighing, and prioritizing which personal and environmental factors should be targets of intervention and how best to provide freer, easier, and more autonomous access to activities and social connections of choice. This does not mean that treatment comprises only life resumption processes, but rather that enhanced participation in life “governs” management from its inception. In this fundamental way, the LPAA approach differs from one in which life enhancement is targeted only after language repair has been addressed.

Emphasis Is on the Availability of Services as Needed at All Stages of Aphasia

LPAA begins with the onset of aphasia and continues until consumers and providers agree that targeted life enhancement changes have occurred. However, LPAA acknowledges that life consequences of aphasia change over time and should be addressed regardless of the length of time post-onset. Consumers are therefore permitted to discontinue intervention, and reenter treatment when they believe they need to continue work on a goal or to attain a new life goal.

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