Coeffects of Experience and Professional Interest on SLPs' Assessment of Chronic Aphasia: A Correlational Survey Study

Saturday, 7:00am to 8:00am
Windgate Hall
SP56
Aphasia is a commonly treated language disorder; however there is discrepancy among professionals regarding classification and assessment practices (Code & Petheram, 2011; McNeil & Pratt, 2001; ). Current research focuses on acute assessment and treatment; chronic aphasia (one or more years post-onset) is severely under-represented. A review of the literature revealed a wide array of standardized and non-standardized tests used to evaluate both acute and chronic aphasia cases. Overall, there appears to be extreme variance in evaluation practices, especially among SLPs (Bland et al., 2013). Aims: The present study aims to quantify two variables that may account for this inconsistency in evaluation procedures: 1) years of clinical experience and 2) professional interest. Methods: SLPs with membership to either ASHA Special Interest Group 2 or the ABAI Speech-Pathology Interest Group were contacted to participate in a survey. They were presented with a demographic questionnaire and hypothetical vignettes detailing chronic aphasia cases. The data was collected through SurveyMonkey and exported to the free, downloadable program R for statistical analysis. Years of clinical experience and professional interest were subsequently correlated to specific survey responses measuring the following variables: decision to reassess, decision of what clinical constructs to address (i.e. language, cognition, etc.), selection of assessments, and opinion regarding generalization of naming to functional requesting behavior. Results: Due to lack of participation, the professional interest variable was eliminated. A Spearman Rho test revealed no statistical significance for all other variables correlated with years experience. Limitations to study included small sample size and brief survey collection window. Further research is warranted on the subject. Keywords: chronic aphasia, assessment, experience, professional interest, survey
Track: 
Adult