Effects of Aphasia Identification Cards on Service Workers' Comprehension of People With Aphasia

People with aphasia often experience challenges conveying their thoughts to unfamiliar communication partners, which is critical for living independently and building new social connections. This line of research has two long-term objectives: to improve unfamiliar communication partners' comprehension of people with aphasia, and to support people with aphasia in advocating for their communication needs. This project addresses these goals with a focus on service workers, who interact directly with customers to provide goods, services, or information. Being understood by service workers is often necessary to complete essential tasks such as purchasing food and picking up medication. This project investigates whether service workers comprehend speakers with aphasia more accurately when they have first read an aphasia identification (ID) card. Aphasia ID cards contain written self-advocacy statements that disclose the speaker's aphasia, define aphasia, and provide guidance on how to communicate successfully. These statements have been shown to improve unfamiliar communication partners' attitudes (knowledge about aphasia, emotions, and behavior), which improves communication experiences for people with aphasia. This project tests the central hypothesis that, by improving unfamiliar communication partners' attitudes, aphasia ID cards facilitate key language processes that improve their comprehension of people with aphasia. This randomized controlled trial will enroll 160 service workers. Half of the service workers will view an aphasia ID card for a speaker with aphasia, and half will not. Then, all service workers will complete tasks measuring their attitudes, language processing, and comprehension of service requests (i.e., requests for goods, services, or information) produced by speakers with aphasia. Eye-tracking will be used to measure key language processes that take place while service workers listen to the service requests. The Specific Aims are to investigate how viewing an aphasia ID card affects service workers' attitudes, language processing, and comprehension when people with aphasia produce long pauses (Aim 1) and paraphasias (word-retrieval errors) (Aim 2). By rigorously investigating the effects of aphasia ID cards on service workers' attitudes, language processing, and comprehension, this project will contribute to the long-term goals of improving unfamiliar communication partners' comprehension and helping people with aphasia self-advocate effectively.

Inclusion criteria

• Adult age 18-59
• Currently employed as a service worker
• Understand spoken and written English well
• High school diploma or equivalency
• Normal vision or corrected vision with glasses or contact lenses

Exclusion criteria

• Language disorder
• Hearing impairment
• Intellectual disability
• History of acquired neurological disorder (e.g., stroke or moderate/severe brain injury)