| 英文摘要 |
Purpose:Aphasia is a common symptom in stroke patients and often leads to communicative disability. Aphasia can affect stroke patients’ daily living and social participation. Applying augmentative and alternative communication systems (AACs) in clinical rehabilitation has proven effective in enhancing the communicative efficiency of stroke patients with aphasia. The successful implementation of AACs requires not only appropriate system design but also sufficient training in system operation. This study explored the learning and generalized effects on sentence production of training stroke patients with Broca’s aphasia to use a voice-output communication aid. Methods: This study adopted a multiple probe across-subjects design to investigate the effect of a voice-output communication aid on the accuracy rate of sentence production. Three stroke patients with aphasia consented to participate in this study. The researchers used the Social Networks Communication Inventory to establish the basic communicative needs of the participants, and employed this information to design the communicative sentences for practice and training. The main procedures of this study entailed investigating the communicative needs of the participants, designing the communication boards of the voice-output communication aid, confirming participants’ recognition of communicative symbols, training the participants to use the voice-output communication aid, and investigating the accuracy rate of sentence production in different communicative situations. In the training process, some cues and prompts were provided by the researchers to facilitate the learning outcomes. The data were illustrated and analyzed using visual analysis and the C statistical test. After the research was conducted, the satisfaction of the participants and primary caregivers with the AAC was also investigated. Results/Findings: In accordance with the basic communicative needs of the participants, the researchers designed a two-level layout for the voice-output communication aid that included 138 communicative symbols and three different communicative situations. All participants exhibited significant improvement in the percentage of communicative sentences accurately completed. The learning and generalized effects persisted in the maintenance phase. The participants and primary caregivers were satisfied with using the voice-output communication aid. The number of cues and prompts given by the researchers decreased during the training process. Conclusions/Implications: The results demonstrated, in a clinical therapeutic setting, that the voice-output communication aid training can assist stroke patients with Broca’s aphasia to completely express communicative sentences. The learning effectiveness of using the voice-output communication aid was influenced by the participants’ cognitive function, motor control of upper extremities, and personal traits. Additional influencing factors were the design of the communication system, and training in its use. Further research can extend this study to different severity levels of Broca’s aphasia and to various neurological diseases. |
