One Aphasia Action: Day 5
One Aphasia Action is a set of small, actionable activities you can do from home that will help you retain speech progress.
In times of great stress, people turn to mysteries. Why? Because we know that every story — unlike life — has a solution. So read a one-minute mystery. You can Google that term and find plenty online, or follow this link to find a ton of one-minute mysteries and their solutions. Can you solve it before peeking at the answer?
You can find all of the One Aphasia Action activities on this list. This works best if you start on Day 1 and work at your own pace, even if you’re finding this project long after it has started. Try every activity, even if you only do it once. Keep doing the activities you like, repeating them the next day along with the new activity, and drop the ones that don’t work for you.
Comments
3 Comments
Hi there,
This initiative is really good for people with Aphasia and I would presume in the majority of cases it will be the immediate family or carer who are the ones to ensure this project is actioned by their loved one.
Some people with Aphasia could not read all of the content on your emails and I think it would be good to have something visual for the more severe cases.
My husband is in his 7th year of recovery and still isn’t able to read long emails or listen to TV when people are talking for a long time.
Thanks again for your campaign, especially as the world is heavily focussed on the immediate problems we have at the moment.
Here’s an idea for people with aphasia that have difficulty getting meaning from written material and long stretches of spoken material (as on TV). As much as possible pair reading with unabridged audio. This works especially well when the audio can be slowed down. These days when many libraries are closed, unabridged audio versions of popular books are available from on-line sites that sell books. A “low tech” way of providing unabridged audio is to read to the person with aphasia as he/she reads the same book along with you. If you only have one copy of the book, try alternating reading aloud, first the person with aphasia and then you.
The easiest way to aid spoken TV comprehension is to turn on the “closed captions”. Every TV made since the digital revolution has a switch or menu choice in the settings enabling closed captions to be displayed at the bottom of the screen during programs.
This is a strategy also used by English (and other languages) learners, as well as people with deafness and learning disabilities.
Neither of these ideas are magic or work “instantly”, but both help the stream of spoken or written words to become more intelligible over time.
Try using the “closed captions” when the person with aphasia ( PWA) is watching TV. Also, look for unabridged audio recordings (especially the ones with variable speed that can be slowed down) to be used with the print books the PWA likes to read.
Maureen McCarron, M.A., CCC/SLP (Retired)