A
AAC: an acronym for Alternative and Augmentative Communication. AAC is a comprehensive collection of communication strategies that provide external support (by way of picture boards, speech generating devices, gestures, apps, etc.) for people who cannot generate messages on their own. This would allow the PWA to communicate with others ranging from basic information to conversations. It is important to note that a person with aphasia does not benefit from an AAC device if he/she is able to talk and/or spell words.
Abulia: the lack of purposeful or spontaneous movements. There may be a lack of motivation or desire to perform a task, despite intact ability to perform the task or difficulty putting goal-directed behavior into action. See also Adynamic Aphasia.
Acalculia: an acquired problem with math. AphasiaToolBox treats this initially with the Numeracy treatment module.
Adjective: also called "a describing word," an adjective provides a description of a noun (e.g., a red ball).
Adynamic Aphasia: difficulty translating a concept or a thought into a sequence of words (lexical items). In other words, the person may have trouble getting started. This difficulty with the intentional elements of communication is addressed by several parts of the BCAT program. This may be contrasted with dynamic aphasia.
Agnosia: an acquired problem with the ability to recognize a stimulus (objects, persons, sounds, shapes or smells) even though sensory information and memory are relatively intact. Agnosia is usually found in individuals who have suffered some form of brain injury.
Agrammatism: the omission of or difficulty in producing linguistic units by people with aphasia when they speak or write. PWA who experience agrammaticism often have problems using small yet important words such as: pronouns (you; him; our); propositions (in; down, below); helping verbs (should; can); conjunctions (but, while, during); and verbs (is; walk; think), as well as parts of whole words (-ing, -ly, -er, -ier, -est, -ed) and irregular changes (run>ran, understand>understood).
Agraphesthesia The inability to recognize letters or numbers drawn by an examiner on the skin of a person being tested. The patient cannot see during the procedure the number being drawn on the palm of his/her hand.
Agraphia: an acquired problem with writing and spelling. AphasiaToolBox treats agraphia initially with the Keyboarding and Flash Spelling treatment modules.
Alexia: acquired difficulty reading printed language. AphasiaToolBox treats alexia initially with the Keyboarding and Flash Spelling treatment modules and then moves into Propositional Reading activities; this refers to normal, adult sight reading. The AphasiaPhonics treatment module provides additional recovery tools.
Amnesia: a problem remembering persons, places or events.
Anagram: 1. a word formed by rearranging the letters of another word; 2. a sentence formed by rearranging the words of another sentence.
Anomia: is a type of aphasia characterized by problems recalling words or names. People suffering from anomia often use circumlocutions when attempting to mentally access a specific word. This is similar to when a person without aphasia cannot remember a word saying , "It is on the tip of my tongue."
Anosognosia: a lack of awareness or recognition of one's disabilities or impairments. People may have anosognosia following a stroke or traumatic brain injury. This may be confused with learned non-attention or learned helplessness.
Antonymns: words that are opposite in meaning to each other (e.g., day and night) These can be used in an effective treatment program.
Aphasia: an acquired communication problem that is most often caused by a stroke. Aphasia affects a person's ability to use and understand language to varying degrees across some or all modalities of language (reading, writing, talking, listening). Aphasia is different for each person. Attention to the cognitive skills that support speech and language are essential to maximize aphasia recovery. The key to effective aphasia treatment and recovery is taking advantage of neuroplasticity.
AphasiaPhonics: an innovative treatment approach for speech problems associated with aphasia. It involves the use of phonetics, basic phonics and phonology to help people with aphasia process, say and spell words by using the letter-sound correspondence. It is part of the Brain Compatible Aphasia Treatment program. Visit AphasiaPhonics practice protocols by clicking here. We found that very often, the better a PWA spells the better he/she will talk.
AphasiaToolBox (ATB): the official website of the Aphasia Center of Innovative Treatment, Inc. Founded in 2005 by Bill Connors, ATB provides its members with a full collection of aphasia recovery tools, materials and software designed specifically to help PWA maximize aphasia recovery and take full advantage of neuroplasticity.
Aphasia Conversation Group: a group of people whose goals are to converse with each other in a natural way. The benefits of conversation groups include the opportunity to practice with others, team support and natural social engagement. Online aphasia groups at aphasiatoolbox.com are called Aphasia Communication Cafes. These Cafes are facilitated by a person and are free of charge to AphasiaToolbox members.
Aphasia Support Group: a group of people whose goals are to provide emotional support to each other, share resources and ideas for recovery efforts, help with adjusting to aphasia, provide the chance to converse, and keep up with current happenings in the world of aphasia. For a listing of support groups by regions visit http://aphasia.org/aphasia_community/aphasia_community_groups.html. Online aphasia groups are also available. Contact us for more information about online support groups.
Aphasia Treatment Group: a group of people whose goals are to provide receive treatment in a group setting. The benefits of aphasia group treatment include reduced cost, support, social engagement, turn-taking and learning by watching others. Online aphasia groups are also available. Contact us for more information about online support groups.
Aphasiologist: a term used for an SLP who specializes in the treatment aphasia.
Apraxia: a disorder of programming body movements. When it affects speech (often referred to as apraxia of speech), it makes it difficult for a person to program and coordinate speech muscle movements to say words. It may also impair the ability to initiate voicing or sequence sounds into syllables. It is important to recognize that apraxia may affect other body movement (arm; leg; vocal folds; swallowing; head shake/nod, etc). One early key to speech recovery is to overcome apraxia that affect the voice. The staff at aphasiatoolbox.com use the exclusive Motor Reconnect Apraxia Program to address apraxia that affects voice and speech.
Aprosodia: an acquired difficulty with using and/or interpreting emotional prosody, which can result after brain injury. AphasiaToolBox treatment incorporates activities to reconnect prosodic skills throughout each person's program.
Asymbolia: a form of aphasia that causes a person to have difficulty interpreting symbolic meanings of things such as images, gestures, and signs.
Ataxia: a disorder that involves a lack of muscle coordination during voluntary movements such as walking or picking up objects. Ataxia can affect speech movement and coordination, resulting in ataxic dysarthria.
Attention: involves the way we attend to and process information present in our surroundings. Attention could be of the following nature:
- Focused attention - active attention to one thing; being able to focus.
- Sustained attention - ongoing attention to a stimulus; sustaining attention long enough to practice.
- Selective attention - the ability to avoid distractions; being able to overcome distractibility; .
- Alternating attention - the ability to shift focus from one task to another; to attend to speech then to text then back to speech.
- Divided attention - the ability to attend to more than one task; to remember words while organizing them into a sentence.
Auditory Comprehension: the ability to understand the speech of other people.
Automaticity: the ability to do things automatically, without needing to use a significant amount of mental processes (e.g., counting numbers, reciting the alphabet, etc.). This is often the result of learning, repetition and practice. The overuse of automatic speech (counting; saying the alphabet in sequence or the days of the week for example) during aphasia treatment and practice may, in the long run, be detrimental to optimal aphasia recovery. Instead, the use of propositional speech and the person's own memory are emphasized by the staff at aphasiatoolbox.com .
Auxilliary verb: Helping verbs or auxiliary verbs such as will, shall, may, might, can, could, must, ought to, should, would, used to, need are used in conjunction with main verbs to express shades of time and mood. These words are critical in recovery of sentence production and conversation as they, along with pronouns, very frequently start everyday sentences. The term modals may also be used.
B
Backward Chaining: Backward chaining is a technique used in therapy which involves a "strategy of teaching tasks in reverse of the order in which they are done on the job/activity". Do the task but have the client complete the last step of the task. Next time have the client complete the next to last and last step of the task. Proceed having the client complete one more preceding step. This allows for success in completing the task and works on procedural memory.
Brain Compatible Aphasia Treatment Program: abbreviated BCAT, this treatment program was pioneered by AphasiaToolBox, in order to take advantage of the powerful recovery and reconnective potential of neuroplasticity. BCAT brings together the best of aphasia research, neuroscience, learning theory and the clinical expertise of our speech-language pathologists. We blend this combination with the determination and effort of the person with aphasia, using our innovative techniques and tools to achieve his/her goals.
C
Canonical Sentence: also called an SVO sentence (subject + verb + object), the most basic and common sentence form. In a canonical sentence, the subject is the person or thing performing the action (the verb) and the object is the thing being affected by the action. For example, in the sentence "He is good," the subject is "He," the verb is "is," and the object is "good." Or, in the sentence, "I threw the ball," the subject is "I," the verb is "threw," and the object is "ball."
Chiasmus: /ky as mus/ refers to a figure of speech by which the order of the glossary/ in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second. An example is, " Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." It is used throughout literature including poetry, prose and religious books like the bible. One way this is used in aphasiatoolbox treatment is to reverse 2 phrases for effective practice in use of verbal working memory, blending, pronouns, modals and reverse word order question asking: " I may. May I?; She may go. May she go? Click here for website resource.
Circumlocution: the use of indirect language or roundabout expressions. People with aphasia may circumlocute, talking around a word that they cannot recall or say. This should not be confused with the aphasia word recall technique of self cuing (an example of the technique is: "It's cold....I put in my drink ...it's ice... I need an ice cube.").
Coach: a person who assists a person with aphasia with engaging in the hours of daily practice and conversation necessary for maximal recovery. See Practice Coach.
Cognition: the mental process involved in thought. Cognition includes thinking, knowing, remembering, judging, problem solving, executive function, attention, memory, etc. Recent research has confirmed that improving cognitive skills in incisive ways will improve aphasia. Helping our clients recovering from aphasia early in their treatment programs to improve their cognitive skills significantly decreases the time necessary for recovery.
Cognitive Flexibility: the ability to adapt thinking to new and unexpected happenings, including the ability to consider a variety of solutions to a problem or to come up with multiple ways to interpret an event.
Cohesion: the links that hold a conversation, statement or narrative together. They guide listeners or conversational partners and show how parts of a story or conversation relate to each other.
Compound Sentence: a sentence which is made up of two or more independent clauses (groups of words that could stand on their own as separate sentences), joined by a conjunction or semicolon. Some examples are: "Bob ate then he did the dishes."; She let before he arrived."
Conjugation: the modification of a verb from its basic form. It is a treatment activity in the Brain Compatible Aphasia Treatment Program that is designed to help a person with aphasia fluently say aloud sentences by reconnecting his/her ability to say the subjective pronouns and add a verb. An example is: "I walk.; You walk.; He walks, etc".
Conjunction: a word or phrase that connects two words, phrases, or ideas (e.g., and, but, so). The BCAT begins to introduce conjunctions once canonical sentence use is reconnected.
Conversation: is what aphasia recovery is all about. It is the spoken informal exchange of information, ideas or thoughts by 2 or more people following rules of etiquette such as turn taking. Recovering the ability to converse is nearly always one of the most important goal for people with aphasia.
Copula Verbs: linking verbs that connect a subject and complement (e.g., be, seem). These are simple, yet important verbs for everyday language and are usually impaired by aphasia. Examples include: "I am cold."; "You seem happy."; "He was late."
Correspondence: Refers to communication by exchange of letters or emails. Communication by correspondence can be a tool used in telepractice. Correspondence should not be the only way that speech/language therapy is provided.
D
Decoding: the process through which meaning is extracted from written letters. Decoding is essential to reading.
Dementia: a progressive deterioration of intellectual functions, such as memory and attention.
Discourse: a unit of written or spoken language longer than a single sentence. Obviously, this is an essential skill in communicative situations such as conversation, giving directions and sharing feelings. Addressing discourse skills early in groups is one way that aphasiatoolbox clients take much less time to recover.
Divergent Thinking: the ability to explore various possible solutions. See also cognitive flexibility. These are important skills for a person to have in order to take advantage of his/her full vocabulary.
Dynamic Aphasia: an inability to mentally select from competing verbal choices. People with dynamic aphasia complain of too many words to choose from as they try to talk.
Dysarthrias: a group of motor speech disorders resulting from damage to
the brain or nervous system, which leads to abnormalities in the muscle
movements for speech. This includes muscle strength and tone, range of motion,
speed and precision of movement. People with dysarthria may have difficulty
being understood by others, because of disturbances in their speech, which may
affect articulation, voice, rhythm, resonance, and breathing in various ways.
Dysfluency: a breakdown or blockage in the smooth forward flow of speech.
Dyslexia: a learning disorder distinguished by impaired ability to recognize and comprehend written words.
Dysphagia: difficulty with swallowing.
Dyspraxia: see Apraxia
E
Echolalia: immediate or delayed pathological repetition of words previously spoken by others.
Ellipsis: the omission of some words from a sentence.
Engagement: mutual and purposeful social interaction and conversation. Important in optimal recovery is the active initiation of conversation by the person with aphasia.
F
Formative Assessment: an ongoing (minute-by-minute; day-by-day) assessment, observation and review used to maximize the positive effect of client practice and aphasiatreatment. Speech-langauge pathologists and practice coaches can use formative assessment to keep individual aphasia treatment programs fresh and effective, based on changes in a client's performance.
G
Grammar: the study of how linguistic units combine to form sentences, or the system of rules implicit in a language.
Grapheme: the smallest unit in a writing system capable of causing a contrast in meaning, including letters and punctuation marks.
H
Hemianoposia: a disorder characterized by blindness or decreased vision in half of the visual field of one or both eyes. This often is associated with stroke.
Hemiparesis: weakness on one side of the body.
Hemiplegia: a paralysis of one side of the body as a result of stroke or other neurological injury.
Heteronyms: words with the same spelling but different meanings and pronunciations (e.g., wind, as in blowing wind or winding a clock). Often the difference lies in which syllable is stressed in the word (e.g., produce, as in fruits and vegetables vs. produce, meaning to make something).
Homonyms: words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings.
Homophone: a word which has the same pronunciation as another but a different meaning, derivation, or spelling.
I
Inference: drawing a logical conclusion from evidence, facts or circumstances. Inferencing is a cohesive skill.
Intent: what a person planned or wanted to communicate prior to speaking or writing. The underlying message a person is trying to convey. In aphasia recovery, it is crucial that people with aphasia reconnect their ability to abstract what others intend to communicate when they speak and also the ability to clearly recognize their own intent when speaking.
Interaction: the social relationships and communication between two or more people. This may involve actions such as acting and reacting with each other or sharing experiences. Often, people with aphasia have difficulty initiation and/or sustaining conversation.
Intensive: refers to, for a client of aphasiatoolbox, an aphasia recovery program in which the PRA has at least 5 hours of treatment, 10 hours of coaching, 10 hours of independent practice and 5 hours of groups interaction per week. There are a number of residential, intensive programs that offer intensive programs for a set period of time usually one month. The intensive program at aphasiatoolbox is at least one year or as long as it takes.
Interrogative: also known as "question words", interrogatives are words that are used to ask questions (e.g., who, what, when, where, why, how).
IPA: the acronym for International Phonetic Alphabet. The IPA has an internationally recognized form for representing the pronunciation of various speech sounds. The BCAT phoneticize program uses a modified version of the IPA to simplify speech practice.
J
K
Keyboarding: a person's ability to use a heyboard in order to interact with a technological tool, such as a computer, iPad, cell phone, ATM machine or TV remote control. A person with aphasia may have no difficulty with this skill but often it is impaired after a stroke. Reconnecting keyboarding skills is critical in aphasia recovery.
L
Learned helplessness: the condition of a person who has learned to rely on others for help and will avoid taking steps to help him or herself, even though he/she may be capable of doing so. Often, after a stroke or brain injury, people may believe that they are not capable of doing things independently and therefore, rely on family or caregivers to do things for them. Replacing learned helplessness with focused cognitive attention and independently initiated action is crucial in maximizing aphasia recovery. See also Learned non-attention.
Learned non-attention: the condition of a person who either not sure where to focus his/her attention or had has developed set responses or maladaptive point of focus. This problem can of course impair, or even preclude, adequate aphasia recovery. The PWA who are clients of aphasiatoolbox have shown excellent success in replacing this detrimental habit with clear, focused attention in the semantic, environmental and visual fields.
Learning Theory: a broad term used to describe the various models/philosophies about how human beings learn.
Left Branching: A term borrowed from lingusitics and sentence parsing which indicates the growth of sentence in a particular direction. eg. Today I will eat is left branched for the sentence " I will eat"
Lemma: an abstract conceptual form of a word that has been mentally selected in the brain prior to being spoken aloud. The word in a person's mind before he/she writes or says it.
Lexeme: A: the mental representation of a word with its sound and syllable structure. For example, can you mentally rehearse saying the word PEN before saying it? Can you heat the sounds and syllable sin your head? If so, you 'lit up your lexeme. this is a critical element in aphasia treatment and practice. B: the set of forms that can be taken by a particular word. E.g., jump, jumps, jumped, and jumping are forms of the same lexeme and “jump” is the lemma.
Lexical: the words of a language.
Lexicon: the entire collection of all the words a person knows. Aphasia makes it difficult for a person to access and use his/her lexicon.
Logorrhea: excessive wordiness. The uncontrollable intention to continue a dialogue with lack of awareness of its impact on conversational partner. Similar to press of speech but tendency ro stay on a topic rather than drift from topic to topic.
M
Memory: a person's mental capacity to be able to recall or reproduce what he/she has learned and retained. This includes facts, events, impressions, words, names, experiences, procedures, etc. Having a client work from his/her memory is a key factor in the Brain Compatible Aphasia Treatment Program and in the client achieving maximal recovery of spontaneous, propositional conversation.
Mental processes: the cognitive operations involved when a person thinks and remembers. Some thought functions considered to be mental processes include attention, memory, problem solving, decision making, and producing and understanding language. Aphasia treatment should target appropriate mental processes to maximize aphasia recovery. Your speech pathologist can explain to you what your mental process targets are and why they were chosen.
Metaphasia: a person's knowledge of language and insight into the cognitive processes used to communicate using language.
Metapraxia: a person's understanding of and insight into the planning and execution of movement patterns.
Metacognition: defined as "thinking about thinking" or "knowing about knowing". In Brain Compatible Aphasia Treatment, the client taps into the knowledge about when and how to use particular strategies for learning and problem solving. Aphasiatoolbox.com clients recovering from aphasia are able to explain how they mentally approach talking or typing.
Modal Verb: a type of verb that indicates ability, permission, probability, or obligation (e.g., must, may, might, can, will, should, would, etc.). Reconnecting the use of modal verbs is one way the aphasiatoolbox clinicians can significantly increase the rate of recovery for their clients.
Morphology: the study of structure and form of words in a language. It may also be the branch of linguistics/grammar that studies word structure.
Motor Speech Disorders: speech disorders caused by neurological impairment, which result in disturbances in the ability to plan, program, control, and execute speech. Motor speech disorders include dysarthrias and apraxia of speech. The staff at AphasiaToolbox use the Oral Motor Coordination program to improve motor speech problems.
Myth: There is, according to legend, a certain point at which a person with aphasia stops improving and the implication is that he/she cannot improve anymore. This places the blame on the PWA for lack of progress. We, as well as other therapists and PRA and researchers, have clearly shown that is a myth. PWA who become PRA can continue to travel the pathway of recovery with smart, effective treatment and practice.
N
Narrative: the account or story of experiences or events. It can be anything that is told or recounted. Being able to tell a story or relate an experience is an important part of life and therefore of aphasia recovery. It requires skill in discourse, cohesiveness, memory and linking of sentences.
Neural Control: control of various muscle groups initiated by electrical signals generated between the nerve cells in the brain.
Neural Pathways: bundles of neurons that connect one part of the nervous system with another.
Neuroplasticity: the ability of the brain to heal itself or grow. It is the ability of the human brain to make changes and adapt in reaction to environmental cues, experiences, behavior, injury and/or disease. ATB provides its members with a full collection of aphasia recovery tools, materials and software designed specifically to help PWA maximize aphasia recoveryand take full advantage of neuroplasticity.
Neurogenic: controlled by or arising from the nervous system.
Numeracy: a person’s ability to use math effectively in his/her everyday life. It involves using mathematics to make sense of the world. See acalculia. Members of AphasiaToolBox use the Numeracy module on the Aphasia Sight Reader in their numeracy recovery practice.
O
Object: a part of a sentence which is a noun or pronoun. The object of the sentence is the thing which is affected by the action of the verb. (E.g., I threw the ball.)
P
Paraphasia: the production of unintended syllables, words, or phrases by people with aphasia.
Paragrammatism: the substitution of grammatical morphemes by people with aphasia.
Perseveration: the inappropriate repeating of a sound, word or phrase instead of the intended item. This is a common problem associated with aphasia. When treated as a problem of focused and alternating attention, perseveration can be quite responsive to change.
Phonagnosia: an impairment in the recognition of familiar voices.
Phoneme: the smallest phonetic unit in a language that is capable of conveying a change in meaning. They are either consonants or vowels.
Phoneme Sequence Knowledge: the knowledge of the sound sequence regularities and rules of a language. ATB uses the AphasiaPhonics treatment module primarily to address help PWA reconnect this important skill.
Phoneticize: representing the sounds of speech with a set of distinct symbols, each designating a single sound; phonetic spelling. Phoneticizing is one skill involved in the AphasiaPhonics treatment module used at AphasiaToolbox.
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Phonological Aphasia: refers to an aphasia in which the PWA may "know" or be able to mentally recall the word, but has difficulty thinking of the sounds needed to say the word. Moreover, many clients experience difficulty with syllabification, the ability to know how many syllables that the word has.
Phonological Awareness: the explicit
understanding that words are made up of smaller parts like syllables and
sounds and that sounds can relate to each other in different ways. Phonological
awareness is critical for decoding printed words and forming connections
between sounds and letters in recovering spelling and keyboarding with aphasia.
Phonology: the study of the way that sounds are used in a language and the rules for pronouncing certain words.
Phrasal Verb: is a verb phrase that contains both a noun and a preposition. An example is "I took up sewing." Phrasal verbs are very commonly used in everyday conversation and provide an opportunity to introduce prepositions in natural contexts into aphasia recovery practice and treatment.
Plateau: a term, unfortunately used by some rehabilitation specialists and medical staff, that indicates that a person with aphasia is no longer expected to make progress. The PWAmay be told to expect a plateau after a certain period of time. We at AphasiaToolbox join many other aphasiologists who now recognize the concept of a “patient plateau” as a myth and instead believe in the endless possibilities of recovery.
Practice: To maximize your aphasia recovery, you must engage in many hours of practice using smart exercises with effective materials and innovative technology. The average client at aphasiatoolbox.com practices nearly 3 hours everyday. This is time outside of formal treatment with an SLP. It may include group treatment sessions or social interaction at support groups or the online aphasiatoolbox cafes.
Practice Coach: a person who assists a person with aphasia with engaging in the hours of daily practice necessary for maximal recovery. AphasiaToolbox incorporates coaches into the treatment processes and specifically support their efforts with training and materials. This results in a reduced cost and increased effectiveness for intensive aphasia rehabilitation. The coach may offer
feedback, give instruction, provide guidance and explanation, serve as a
conversational partner and participate in plans for additional
practice. Contact us for information about our AphasiaToolbox Practice Coach Program.
Pragmatics: the social rules of conversation and communication. That means that pragmatic speech is spoken language used to communicate with others and socialize. Three rules of pragmatic social conversation are: 1. taking turns or equal participation; 2. sharing new information during exchanges; 3. commenting on the content of speech not the way it is spoken.
Primary Progressive Aphasia: a dementia that results in a progressive loss of language abilities, while memory is relatively preserved.
Procedural Memory: knowledge of how to perform skills and actions (i.e., procedures) such as driving a car, using a cell phone or keyboarding. The BCAT and the MRAP programs address both using old and establishing new procedural memories.
Pronouns: play a critical role in an effective aphasia recovery program because: we use them to start most of our everyday sentences, they allow us to refer back to a name or word, and they can be used to describe or to ask questions. Pronouns are words that take the place of a noun in a sentence. They can be substituted for a person's name (e.g., I, he, she, you, we, they, me, him, her, us, them, etc.), or for an object (e.g., it, this, that, those, etc.), or the name of a place (e.g., here, there, etc.). See also interrogative.
Propositional Speech: the speech and language that we use for everyday conversation. It happens when a person creatively formulates words into sentences with regard to the situation at hand.
Proprioceptive Feedback: the feedback that the brain receives from the muscles and nerves about the physical feelings of where the body (or a part of it) is and how it is moving.
PWA: an acronym meaning "person/people with aphasia".
Prosody: the rhythm, stress and intonation patterns of a person's speech. People use prosody to express important elements during conversations such as intent, emphasis, sarcasm, importance of the message and attitude. A person with aphasia often also has problems with prosody either as part of the speech/language impairment (aprosodia) or as a secondary outcome of the efforts to speak (struggle, robotic speech, mental resource allocation issues).
Q
R
Reconnectionist Theory: a theory which suggests that persons with aphasia and apraxia recover for the most part by reconnecting residual speech and language skills. It contrasts in some important ways with learning theory used in the educational field.
Recovery: a process through which people with aphasia (PWA) reconnect their ability to speak, understand and communicate. We have learned that aphasia recovery need never reach a plateau; that progress can continue with innovative and effective treatment and practice. Maximizing aphasia recovery: involves hope and faith; is driven by the empowered PWA; is holistic in nature; is supported by family, peers and others; utilizes many different facets of life and treatment; and is based on respect and hard, smart work. If you have been told that you have reached a "plateau", contact us to discuss how you can continue to improve. Our misison is to turn people with aphasia into people recovering from aphasia.
S
Screen Literacy: a person’s ability to successfully interact with everyday technology. This is a critical skill in today’s world and might include using a cell phone, an ATM, a TV remote, or a gas pump. The Keyboarding and Flash Spelling activities on the Aphasia Sight Reader program can assist in the reconnection of these skills.
Semantics: the meaning of a word, phrase, clause, or sentence, as opposed to its syntactic construction. It is also a branch of linguistics concerned with the study of meanings of words.
Social Network: a social structure made of of people and possibly organizations. A social network allows people, who were often strangers initially, to interact, share information, and support each others efforts. The aphasiatoolbox social network consists of people with aphasia; family and friends; aphasiatoolbox staff; speech pathologists; and organizations, all of whom share the goal of helping PWA maximize their recovery.
Speech-language pathologist (SLP): a professional who is educated to assess and treat speech and language disorders (http://www.asha.org/public/speech/default.htm). See also aphasiologist.
Speech motor programming: the activity that occurs in the brain that leads to sequencing the motor movements needed to produce speech accurately.
Stimulus: 1. something that elicits an action or response; 2. an object that is recognized by the senses. In aphasia practice, it is usually a printed or spoken syllable, word or sentence.
Subject: a noun which is doing or being something. In a sentence, the verb expresses an action, while the subject is the person or thing performing that action. (E.g., I threw the ball.)
SVO sentence: See Canonical Sentence.
Syllable: a part of a word or a whole word that is produces with one, uninterrupted sound. It is the smallest portion of speech. We speak in syllables. It is absolutely critical for maximizing recovery of speech that a person with aphasia reconnect his/her ability to mentally recognize and manipulate, and to produce syllables. See syllabification. The AphasiaPhonics treatment and practice module has been very effective at helping PWA reconnect syllable knowledge and production.
Syllabification: the forming or division of words into syllables.
A person’s inability to recognize the number of syllables in a word
can affect his/her spoken language. The Increasing Syllables exercise
in the BCAT program focuses on resolution of this problem.
Synonyms: different words that share a meaning (e.g., elated and ecstatic).
Syntax: the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of a language.
T
Telepractice: also referred to as tele-rehabilitation, may be defined is the provision of treatment services at a distance. Rather than being a substitute for face-to-face sessions, telepractice is a new, proven system for providing aphasia treatment to PWA all over the world. It is critical to not only use tools and activities designed to exploit neuroplasticity, but to also that take advantage of technology when using telepractice.
Tele-rehabilitation: also referred to as Telepractice, may be defined is the provision of treatment services at a distance. Rather than being a substitute for face-to-face sessions, telepractice is a new, proven system for providing aphasia treatment to PWA all over the world. It is critical to not only use tools and activities designed to exploit neuroplasticity, but to also that take advantage of technology when using telepractice.
Tense: In grammar Tense is a category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place e.g. past, present, future.
Truly Therapeutic: is when an activity, drill or task offers smart and effective practice that truly facilitates aphasia recovery. This means that the activity is not just about doing a drill or using an app. That all too often results in nonproductive, busywork. An educated aphasia consumer will then demand that they work he/she does make sense relative to his/her recovery program and adds value to practice.
U
V
Verb: the part of speech that expresses actions (e.g., walk, throw, sing); a state of existence (am, is, are) or occurrence. Traditional aphasia treatment often focuses on nouns, but at AphasiaToolbox, treatment is focused on verbs. See also Canonical Sentence.
Verbal Memory: Verbal Memory is a term used in cognitive pyschology that refers to memory of words and other abstractions involving language.
Vernacular: the language or dialect of a country; the everyday language of ordinary people.
Visual Field: the entire area that can be seen when the eye is directed forward, including the peripheral vision.
Visual Field Cut: also known as hemianopsia or visual field loss. This is a partial or complete loss of vision in the peripheral fields range of vision. A person with this condition may have trouble seeing things out of the corner of his/her eyes, may bump into things or people, or may lose his/her place when reading. It is important to clearly differentiate this condition from visual inattention or neglect.
Visual Neglect: also termed visual inattention or visual spatial neglect. This refers to a decreased awareness of the field of view. There may also be sensory and perceptual involvement.
W
Working Memory: the brain’s capacity to hold information active until we need to use it for some purpose.