Effects of Social Motivators for Two Individuals with Aphasia

Date of Graduation

Spring 2007

Degree

Master of Science in Communication Sciences and Disorders

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Committee Chair

Klaas Bakker

Abstract

Competition and collaboration have been suggested to be effective social motivators that are used in the context of group therapies for individuals with aphasia. Although these conditions have been empirically studied in various fields (education, occupational therapy, health related fields), the use of social motivators for adults with neurogenic communication disorders apparently has not been previously studied. In the current study, the effects of individual, competitive, and collaborative conditions on the word retrieval of two individuals with aphasia were investigated. Both participants improved in all three conditions compared to baseline, while the weakest performance was observed in the competitive condition. Participant 1 displayed the highest accuracy percentages in the collaborative condition, while Participant 2 displayed the highest accuracy percentages in the individual condition. While these results are consistent with the findings of most of the previous research on competitive and collaborative conditions in education, they are inconsistent with some previous findings in occupational therapy and other health-related fields. Possible reasons for inconsistencies with previous research are discussed, as are implications of the results.

Keywords

anomia, aphasia, competitive, collaborative, individual

Subject Categories

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Copyright

© Kristel Cherisse Powell

Citation-only

Dissertation/Thesis

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