Episode #90: Texting for Success in Aphasia Rehabilitation - A Conversation with Jaime Lee

Interviewer

I’m Ellen Bernstein-Ellis, Program Specialist and Clinical Supervisor for the Aphasia Treatment Program at Cal State East Bay and a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. AA's strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources. 

Today, I have the honor of speaking with Dr. Jamie Lee who was selected as a 2022 Tavistock Distinguished Scholar. We'll discuss her research interests and do a deeper dive into her work involving the study of texting behaviors of individuals with aphasia and her efforts to develop an outcome measure that looks at success at the transactional level of message exchange. 

As we frame our podcast episodes in terms of the Gap Areas identified in the 2017 Aphasia Access State of Aphasia  Report by Nina Simmons-Mackie, today's episode best addresses Gap areas: 

5. Insufficient attention to life participation across the continuum of care; 
6. Insufficient training and protocols or guidelines to aid implementation of participation-oriented intervention across the continuum of care; 
7. Insufficient or absent communication access for people with aphasia or other communication barriers 

For more information about the Gap areas, you can listen to episode #62 with Dr. Liz Hoover or go to the Aphasia Access website.

 

Guest bio

Jaime Lee is an Associate Professor in the department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at James Madison University. Jaime’s clinical experience goes back nearly 20 years when she worked as an inpatient rehab SLP at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (now Shirley Ryan Ability Lab). She later worked for several years as a Research SLP in Leora Cherney’s Center for Aphasia Research and Treatment. Jaime earned her PhD at the University of Oregon, where she studied with McKay Sohlberg. Her research interests have included evaluating computer-delivered treatments to improve language skills in aphasia, including script training and ORLA, examining facilitation of aphasia groups, and most recently, exploring text messaging to improve participation, social connection and quality of life in IWA.

 

Listener Take-aways

In today’s episode you will:

• Learn about why texting might be a beneficial communication mode for IwA
• Explore the reasons it’s important to consider the communication partner in the texting dyad
• Find out more about measures examining texting behaviors, like the Texting Transactional Success (TTS) tool.
• Consider how Conversational Analysis may be helpful in understanding texting interactions

Edited show notes

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis

Jamie, welcome to the podcast today. I'm so excited that we finally get to talk to you. And I want to offer a shout out because you mentioned two mentors and colleagues who I just value so much, McKay Solberg and Leora Cherney, and I'm so excited that you've also had them as mentors.

 

Jaime Lee  02:44

Thanks, Ellen. It's really great to talk with you today. And speaking of shout outs, I feel like I have to give you a shout out because I was so excited to meet you earlier this summer at IARC. We met at a breakfast. And it was exciting because I got to tell you that I assigned to my students your efficacy of aphasia group paper, so it was really fun to finally meet you in person.

 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  03:11

Thank you, that is the paper that Roberta Elman was first author on. I was really proud to be part of that.  

I was excited to get to come over and congratulate you at the breakfast on your Tavistock award. I think it's very, very deserving. And I'm excited today that we can explore your work and get to know each other better. And I'm just going to start with this question about the Tavistock. Can you share with our listeners what you think the benefits of the Tavistock Distinguished Scholar Award will be to your work?

Jaime Lee  03:43

Sure, I think first off being selected as a Tavistock Distinguished Scholar has been really validating of my work in terms of research and scholarship. It's made me feel like I'm on the right track. And at least maybe I'm asking the right kinds of questions. And it's also really meaningful to receive an award that recognizes my teaching and impact on students. And I was thinking about this and a conversation that I had with my PhD mentor McKay Solberg. And it was early into my PhD when we were talking about the impact of teaching and how important it was, where she had said that when we work as a clinician, we're working directly with clients and patients were hopefully able to have a really positive meaningful impact. But when we teach, and we train the next generation of clinicians, you know, we have this even greater impact on all of the people that our students will eventually work with throughout their career. And so that's just huge. 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  04:51

It really is huge. And I have to say I went to grad school with McKay and that sounds like something she would say, absolutely, her value of teaching. 

I just want to do a quick shout out to Aphasia Access, because I think they also recognize and value the importance of teaching. They have shown that commitment by their LPAA curricular modules that they developed and make accessible to Aphasia Access members, so people can bring content right into their coursework, which is helpful because it takes so much time to prepare these materials. So, if you haven't heard of these curricular modules yet, please go to the website and check them out. 

So yes, I'm so glad that you feel your work is validated. It’s really important to validate our young researchers.  I think there's an opportunity to expand who you meet during this year. Is that true?

Jaime Lee  05:40

That is already true. This honor has already led to growing connections with other aphasia scholars and getting more involved with Aphasia Access. I'm excited to share that I'll be chairing next year's 2023 Aphasia Access Leadership Summit together with colleagues Esther Kim and Gretchen Szabo. We're really enthusiastic about putting together a meaningful and inspiring program. I am just really grateful for the opportunity to have a leadership role in the conference.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  06:17

Wow, that's a fantastic team. And I, again, will encourage our listeners, if you've never been to a Aphasia Access  Leadership Summit, it is worth going to and everybody is welcomed. We've had several podcast guests who have said that it has been a game changer for them-- their first attendance at the Leadership Summit. So, we'll be hearing more about that. 

Well, I want to start our interview today by laying some foundation for your work with texting and developing some outcome measures for treatment that captures transactional exchange in individuals with aphasia. And let me just ask what piqued your interest in this area?

Jaime Lee  06:57

Yeah, thanks. Well, before I got interested specifically, in texting, I had this amazing opportunity to work as a research SLP with Leora Cherney and her Center for Aphasia Research and Treatment. And we all know Leora well for the contributions she's made to our field. At that time, she had developed ORLA, oral reading for language and aphasia, and a computerized version, and also a computerized version of aphasia scripts for script training. And these were treatments that not only improve language abilities in people with aphasia, but I really had this front row seat to seeing how her interventions really made a difference in the lives of people with aphasia, and help them reengage in the activities that they wanted to pursue-- reading for pleasure and being able to converse about topics that they want to do with their script training. So at the same time, I was gaining these really valuable research skills and understanding more about how to evaluate treatment. I was also able to start learning how to facilitate aphasia groups because Leora has this amazing aphasia community that she developed at what was then RIC. I'm just really grateful for the opportunity I had to have Leora as a mentor, and now as a collaborator. And her work really helped orient me to research questions that address the needs of people with aphasia, and to this importance of building aphasia community.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  08:37

Wow, that sounds like a really amazing opportunity. And I think it's wonderful that you've got to have Leora as a mentor and to develop those interests. Then look at where you're taking it now. So that's really exciting to talk about with you today.

Jaime Lee  08:54

As for the texting interest that really started after I earned my PhD and was back at the Rehab Institute, now Shirley Ryan Ability Lab, Leora was awarded a NIDILRR field initiated grant and I served as a co-investigator on this grant. It was a randomized, controlled trial, evaluating ORLA, combined with sentence level writing. 

The two arms of the trial were looking at ORLA plus writing using a handwriting modality, versus ORLA combined with electronic writing or we kind of thought about this as texting. So we call that arm T-write. And ORLA was originally designed to improve reading comprehension, but we know from some of Leora’s work that there were also these nice cross-modal language improvements, including improvements in written expression. This was a study where we really were comparing two different arms, two different writing modalities, with some secondary interest in seeing if the participants who were randomized to practice electronic writing, would those improvements potentially carry over into actual texting, and perhaps even changes in social connectedness?

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  10:15

Those are great questions to look at. Interest in exploring texting’s role in communication has just been growing and growing since you initiated this very early study. Jamie, would you like to explain how you actually gathered data on participants texting behaviors? How did that work?

Jaime Lee  10:32

Yes. So we were very fortunate that the participants in this trial, in the T-write study, consented to have us extract and take a look at their real texting data from their mobile phones prior to starting the treatment. So, for those who consented, and everyone, I think we had 60 participants in the trial, and every single participant was open to letting us look at their texts and record them. 

 

We recorded a week's worth of text messages between the participant and their contacts at baseline, and then again at a follow up point after the treatment that they were assigned to. And that was so that maybe we could look for some potential changes related to participating in the treatment. So maybe we would see if they were texting more, or if they had more contacts, or maybe they might even be using some of the same sentences that were trained in the ORLA treatment. We haven't quite looked at that, the trial just finished so we haven't looked at those pre/ post data. But when my colleagues at Shirley Ryan and I started collecting these texting data, we realized there were some really interesting things to be learned from these texts. 

And there have been a couple of studies, we know Pagie Beeson's work, she did a T-CART study on texting, right? And later with her colleague, Mira Fein. So we had some texting studies, but nothing that really reported on how people with aphasia were texting in their everyday lives. 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  12:08

Well, Jamie, do you want to share what you learned about how individuals with aphasia texts are different from individuals without aphasia?

Jaime Lee  12:15

We saw that first, people with aphasia do text, there were messages to be recorded. I think only a couple of participants in the trial didn't have any text messages. But we took a look at the first 20 people to enroll in the trial. We actually have a paper out-- my collaborator, Laura Kinsey is the first author. This is a descriptive paper where we describe the sample, 20 people, both fluent aphasia and nonfluent aphasia, a range of ages from mid 30s up to 72. And one striking finding, but maybe not too surprising for listeners, is that the participants with aphasia in our sample texted much less frequently than neurologically healthy adults, where we compared our findings to Pew Research data on texting. And our sample, if we took an average of our 20 participants and look at their texts sent and received over a week, over the seven days, they exchanged an average of about 40 texts over the week. Adults without aphasia, send and receive 41.5 texts a day.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  13:36

Wow, that's quite a difference. Right? 

Jaime Lee  13:39

Yes, even knowing that younger people tend to text more frequently than older adults. Even if we look at our youngest participants in that sample who were in their mid 30s, they were sending and receiving text much less frequently than the age matched Pew data.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  13:56

Okay, now, I want to let our listeners know that we're going to have the citation for the Kinsey et al. article that you just mentioned in our show notes. How can we situate addressing texting as a clinical goal within the life participation approach to aphasia? 

Jaime Lee  14:14

I love this question. And it was kind of surprising from the descriptive paper, that texting activity, so how many texts participants were sending and receiving, was not correlated with overall severity of aphasia or severity of writing impairment? 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis

I'm surprised by that. Were you? 

 

Jaime Lee

Yes, we thought that there would be a relationship. But in other words, having severe aphasia was not associated with texting less. And we recognize, it's dangerous to draw too many conclusions from a such a small sample. But a major takeaway, at least an aha moment for us, was that we can't make assumptions about texting behaviors based on participants’ language impairments, also based on their age, their gender. You know, in fact, our oldest participant in the sample, who was 72, was actually most active texter. He sent and received 170 texts over the week period.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  15:22

Wow, that does blow assumptions out of the water there, Jamie. So that's a really good reminder that this to be individualized with that person at the center? Because you don't know. 

Jaime Lee  15:32

You don’t know. Yeah. And I think it comes down to getting to know our clients and our patients, finding out if texting is important to them. And if it's something they'd like to be doing more of, or doing more effectively, and going from there. 

 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis

Wow, that makes a lot of sense. 

 

Jaime Lee  

Yeah, of course, some people didn't text, before their stroke and don't want to text. But given how popular texting has become as a form of communication, I think there are many, many people with aphasia, who would be interested in pursuing texting as a rehab goal.

 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  16:08

Right? You really have to ask, right? 

 

Jaime Lee  16:11

Yes, actually, there's a story that comes to mind about a participant who was in the T-write study, who had stopped using her phone after her stroke. Her family had turned off service; she wasn't going to be making calls or texting.

 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis

Well, I've seen that happen too many times. 

Jaime Lee  

And when she enrolled in the study, and she was a participant at Shirley Ryan, because we ran participants here at JMU and they ran participants in Chicago. And she was so excited. I heard from my colleagues that she went out and got a new phone so that she could use her phone to participate in the study. And then her follow up data. When we look at her real texts gathered after the study at the last assessment point, her text consists of her reaching out to all of her contacts with this new number, and saying hello, and getting in touch and in some cases, even explaining that she'd had a stroke and has aphasia. 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  17:13

Oh, well, that really reminds me of the value and importance of patient reported outcomes, because that may not be captured by a standardized test, per se, but man, is that impactful. Great story. Thank you for sharing that.

So well, you've done a really nice job in your 2021 paper with Cherney that’s cited in our show notes of addressing texting’s  role in popular culture and the role it's taking in terms of a communication mode. Would you explain some of the ways that conversation and texting are similar and ways that they're different?

Jaime Lee  17:45

That is a great question, Ellen and a question I have spent a lot of time reading about and thinking about. And there is a great review of research that used conversation analysis (CA) to study online interactions. This is a review paper by Joanne Meredith from 2019. And what the review tells us is that there are many of the same organizing features of face to face conversation that are also present in our online communications. So we see things like turn taking, and we see conversation and texting or apps unfold in a sequence. So what CA refers to as sequential organization.  We also see, just like in face to face conversation, there are some communication breakdowns or trouble sources in online communication. And sometimes we see the need for repair to resolve that breakdown.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  18:45

Yeah, Absolutely. I'm just thinking about auto corrects there for a moment.

Jaime Lee  18:51

And they can cause problems too. When the predictive text or the AutoCorrect is not what we meant to say that can cause a problem.Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  18:59

Absolutely. Those are good similarities, I get that.

 

Jaime Lee  19:03

I think another big similarity is just about how conversation is co-constructed. It takes place between a person and a conversation partner and in texting, we have that too. We have a texting partner, or in the case of a group text, we have multiple partners. There's definitely similarities. And another big one is that purpose, I think we use conversation ultimately, and just like we're using texting to build connection, and that's really important

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  19:32

Yeah, I can really see all of those parallels. And there are some differences, I'm going to assume.

Jaime Lee  19:39

Okay, yes, there are some definite interesting differences in terms of the social aspects of conversation. We do a lot in person, like demonstrating agreement, or giving a compliment, or an apology, or all of these nonverbal things we do like gesture and facial expression and laughter. Those nonverbal things help convey our stance, or affiliation, or connection. But in texting, we can't see each other. Right? So we have some different tools to show our stance, to show affiliation. What we're seeing is people using emojis and Bitmojis, and GIFs, even punctuation, and things like all capitals. We've all seen the all caps and felt like someone is yelling at us over text, that definitely conveys a specific tone, right?

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  20:34

I was just going to say emojis can be a real tool for people with aphasia, right? If the spelling is a barrier, at least they can convey something through an image. That's a real difference.

 

Jaime Lee  20:45

Absolutely, I think some of the problematic things that can happen and the differences with texting have to do with sequencing and timing. Because people can send multiple texts, they can take multiple turns at once. And so you can respond to multiple texts at once, or that can lead to some confusion, I think we're seeing, but texting can also be asynchronous, so it’s not necessarily expected that you would have to respond right away

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  21:16

So maybe giving a person a little more time to collect their thoughts before they feel like they have to respond versus in a person-to-person exchange where the pressure is on? 

 

Jaime Lee  

Absolutely, absolutely. 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis

Well, why might texting be a beneficial communication mode for individuals with aphasia, Jamie, because you have spelling challenges and all those other things.

 

Jaime Lee  21:37

Yeah, I think it comes back to what you just said, Ellen, about having more time to read a message, having more time to be able to generate a response. I know that texting and other forms of electronic communication like email, can give users with memory or language problems a way to track and reread their messages. And in some cases, people might choose to bank responses that they can use later. We know this from actually some of Bonnie Todis and McKay Sohlberg’s work looking at making email more accessible for users with cognitive impairment. So I think there are some really great tools available to people with aphasia to feel successful using texting.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  22:30

That's great. I think banking messages is a really important strategy that we've used before, too. 

Jaime Lee  22:37

So there's all these other built-in features, that I'm still learning about that are in some mobile phones, that individuals with aphasia can potentially take advantage of. I think some features might be difficult, but there are things like we've just talked about, like the predictive text or the autocorrect. And then again, all these nonlexical tools, like the emojis and the GIFS and being able to link to a website or attach a photograph. I think this is a real advantage to communicating through text.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  23:10

It lets you tell more of the story, sometimes. One of my members talks about when his spelling becomes a barrier, he just says the word and then that speech-to-text is really helpful. It's just one more support, I guess.

 

Jaime Lee  23:24

Yes. And we're needing to find out a little bit more about the features that people are already using, and maybe features that people don't know about, but that they would like to use like that speech-to-text. That's a great point. 

 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  23:37

Well, how did you end up wanting to study texting for more than an amount of use or accuracy? In other words, what led you to studying transaction? Maybe we can start with a definition of transaction for our listeners? 

Jaime Lee  23:51

Sure. Transaction in the context of communication is the exchange of information. So it involves understanding and expression of meaningful messages and content. And this is a definition that actually comes from Brown and Yule’s concepts of transaction and interaction and communication. So Brown, and Yule tell us that transaction again, is this exchange of content, whereas interaction pertains to the more social aspects of communication.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  24:26

Okay, thank you. I think that's really good place to start.

Jaime Lee  24:29

Part of the interest in transaction, first came out of that descriptive paper where we were trying to come up with systems to capture what was going on. So we were counting words that the participants texted and coding whether they were initiated or are they texts that are simple responses. We counted things they were doing, like did they use emojis or other multimedia? But we were missing this idea of how meaningful their text were and kind of what was happening in their texting exchanges. So this kind of combined with another measure we had, it was another measure in T-write really inspired by Pagie Beeson and Mira Fein’s paper where they were using some texting scripts in their study. 

We also love scripting. We wanted to just have a simple measure, a simple brief texting script that we could go back and look at. We had as part of our protocol a three turn script. And I remember we sat around and said, what would be a really common thing to text about? And we decided to make a script about making dinner plans. And so we're collecting these simple scripts. And as I'm looking at these data coming in, I'm asking myself, what's happening here? How are we going to analyze what's happening? What was important didn't seem to be spelling or grammar. What seemed most important in this texting script was how meaningful the response was. And ultimately, would the person be able to make dinner plans and go plan a dinner date with a friend. So it seemed like we needed a measure of successful transaction within texting.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  26:23

Jamie, I'm just going say that that reminded me of one of my very favorite papers, whereas you started out counting a lot of things that we can count, and it did give you information, like how much less people with aphasia are texting compared to people without aphasia, and I think that data is really essential. But there's a paper by Aura Kagan and colleagues about counting what counts, right, not just what we can count. And we'll put that citation and all the citations in the show notes-- you're  bringing up some wonderful literature. So I think you decided to make sure that you're counting what counts, right? In addition to what we can count. 

 

Jaime Lee  26:59

Yes. And I do love counting. I was trained at the University of Oregon in single case experimental design. So really, behavioral observation and counting. So I am a person who likes to count but that sounds, like counting what counts. I love that.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  27:13

Yeah, absolutely. In that 2021 paper, you look at the way some researchers have approached conversational analysis measures and you acknowledge Ramsberger and Rende’s 2002 work that uses sitcom retells in the partner context. And you look at the scale that Leaman and Edmonds developed to measure conversation. And again, I can refer listeners to Marion Leaman's podcast as a 2021 Tavistock distinguished scholar that discusses her work on capturing conversation treatment outcomes, but you particularly referred to Aura Kagan and colleagues’ Measurement of Participation in Conversation, the MPC. We’ll put the citation in the show notes with all the others, but could you describe how it influenced your work?

 

Jaime Lee  27:58

Yeah, sure. That's funny that you just brought up a paper by Aura Kagan, because I think I'll just first say how much Aura’s work on Supported Conversation for Adults with Aphasia, SCA, how influential it's been throughout my career. First as a clinician and actually interacting with people with aphasia, and then later in facilitating conversation groups and helping to train other staff on the rehab team, the nursing staff. And now, it's actually a part of my coursework that I have students take the Aphasia Institute's free eLearning module, the introduction to SCA, as part of my graduate course, and aphasia, and all of the new students coming into my lab, do that module. So they're exposed really early on to SCA.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  28:50

I'm just gonna say me too. We also use that as a training tool at the Aphasia Treatment Program, It’s really been a cornerstone of how we help students start to learn how to be a skilled communication partner. So I'm glad you brought that up.

Jaime Lee  29:03

Absolutely. So yes, Kagan's Measurement of Participation in Conversation (MPC), was really influential in developing our texting transactional success rating scale. And this is a measure that they created to evaluate participation and conversation. And they were looking actually both at transaction and interaction, I needed to start simply and just look at transaction first. They considered various factors. They have a person with aphasia and a partner engage in a five minute conversation. And they looked at factors like how accurately the person with aphasia was responding, whether or not they could indicate yes/no reliably, and could they repair misunderstandings or miscommunications. And then the raters made judgments on how transactional was that conversation? So, we looked at that measure and modeled our anchors for texting transactional success after their anchors. We had a different Likert scale, but we basically took this range from no successful transaction, partial transaction, to fully successful. And that was really modeled after their MPC.

 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  30:17

Wow. Thank you for describing all of that.

Jaime Lee  30:20

Yeah. Another big takeaway I'll add is that, and this really resonated with what we were hoping to capture, the scores on the MPC weren't necessarily related to traditional levels of severity. So Kagan and colleagues write that someone even with very severe aphasia, could score at the top of the range on the MPC. And I think similarly, what we feel about texting is even someone with severe writing impairments could be very successful, communicating via text message, really, depending on the tools they used, and perhaps, depending on the support they received from their texting partner.

 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  31:02

You and your colleagues develop this Texting Transaction Success tool, the TTS, right? What is the goal of this measure? 

 

Jaime Lee  31:13

The goal of the TTS is to measure communicative success via texting. We wanted this functional measure of texting, not limited to accuracy, not looking specifically at spelling, or syntax, or morphology, but something that reflected the person with aphasia-- his ability to exchange meaningful information. I think the measure is really grounded in the idea that people with aphasia are competent and able to understand and convey meaningful information even despite any errors or incorrect output. So this is really relevant to texting because lots of us are using texting without correct spelling or without any punctuation or grammar. Yet lots and lots of people are texting and conveying information and feeling that benefit of connecting and exchanging information.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  32:08

It sounds like a really helpful tool that you're developing. Could you please explain how it's used and how it's scored?

Jaime Lee  32:16

Sure. So the TTS is a three-point rating scale that ranges from zero, which would be no successful transaction, no meaningful information exchanged, one, which is partial transaction, to two, which is successful transaction. And we apply the rating scale to responses from an individual with aphasia on the short texting script that I was talking about earlier. So this is a three-turn script that is delivered to a person with aphasia where the first line there, we ask them to use their mobile phone or give them a device, and the prompt is: “What are you doing this weekend?” We tell the person to respond any way they want, without any further cues. And then the script goes on, we deliver another prompt, “What about dinner?” And then another prompt, “Great, when should we go?” Each of those responses, we score on the TTS rating scale. We give either a zero, a one or a two. We have lots of examples in the paper of scores that should elicit a zero, a one or a two.We feel like it should be pretty easy for readers to use.

 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  33:33

Wow, that's going to be really important. I always appreciate when I can see examples of how to do things.

Jaime Lee  33:40

We did some really initial interrater reliability on it. The tools are pretty easy to score. We're able to recognize when something is fully transactional, even if it has a spelling error or lexical error, we can understand what they're saying. And a zero is pretty easy to score, if there are graphemes letters that don't convey any meaning, there's no transaction. Where things are a little more interesting, are the partial transaction. I think about an example to “What about dinner” and the participant responded, “Subway, Mexico.” So that's a one because the conversation, the texting partner, would really need to come back and clarify like, “Do you want to get a Subway sandwich?”  Or “Do you want to go eat Mexican?” It could still be really transactional, and they could resolve that breakdown, but the partner would have a little bit more of a role in clarifying the information.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  34:36

When you were actually trying to validate the TTS and establish its interrater reliability in your 2021 article with Cherney you mentioned using the Technology Confidence Survey from the 2021 Kinsey et al. article. Having tools that allow us to understand our clients’ technology user profile is really informative in terms of understanding what modes of communication might be important to them. We talked earlier about not assuming, right, not assuming what people want to do or have done. Can you describe the survey? And is it available?

Jaime Lee  35:13

Sure, yes. This is a survey we developed for the T-write study, the ORLA Plus Electronic Writing study. It's a simple aphasia friendly survey with yes/no questions and pictures that you can ask participants or clients about their technology usage. from “Are you using a computer? Yes or No” or  “Are using a tablet?”, “Are you using a smartphone?”  We ask what kinds of technology they're using and then what are they using it for? Are they doing email? Are they texting? Are they looking up information? Are they taking photos? 

It also has some prompts to ask specifically about some of the technology features like “You're texting? Are you using voice to text?” or “Are you using text to speech to help you with reading comprehension of your text?” 

At the very end, we added some confidence questions. We modeled this after Leora Cherney and Ed Babbitt's Communication Confidence Rating scale. So we added some questions like, “I am confident in my ability to use my smartphone” or “I am confident in my ability to text” and participants can read that on a rating scale. We use this in the context of the research study to have some background information on our participants. I think it could be a really great tool for starting a conversation about technology usage and goals, with people who are interested in using more technology, or are using it in different ways. This (survey) is in the Kinsey et al. article. It’s a supplement that you can download. It's just a really good conversation starter, that when I was giving the technology survey to participants, many times they would take out their phone or take out their iPad and say, “No, I do it. I use it just like this”. It was really hands on and we got to learn about how they're using technology. And I definitely learned some new things that are available.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  37:20

I think many of us use kind of informal technology surveys.  I'm really excited to see the very thoughtful process you went through to develop and frame that (technology use). That's wonderful to share. Jamie, can you speak to the role of the TTS in terms of developing and implementing intervention approaches for texting? You just mentioned goals a moment ago?

Jaime Lee  37:42

Sure. I think we have some more work to do in terms of validating the TTS and that's a goal moving forward. But it's a great starting place. If you have a client who wants to work on texting, it only takes a few minutes to give the script and then score their responses and gives us a snapshot of how effectively they're able to communicate through text. But in terms of developing intervention, to support texting, that's really where we're headed with this. I mean, the big drive is to not just study how people are texting, but really to help support them and texting more effectively and using texting to connect socially and improve their quality of life. But with any kind of intervention, we need a really good outcome measure to capture potential changes. Another reason I'm motivated to continue to work on the TTS, if people with aphasia are going to benefit from a treatment, we need rigorous tools to capture that change and document that potential change.

38:50

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jaime Lee  38:53

At the same time, I'd say the TTS isn't the only method we are focused on, we're really interested in understanding what unfolds during texting interactions. What's happening in these interactions. So, most recently, I've been working with my amazing collaborator, Jamie Azios, who is an expert in Conversation Analysis. I’ve been working with Jamie to say, “Hey, what's happening here? Can we use CA to explore what's going on?” 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  39:25

Well, Jamie, you probably heard this before, but Conversation Analysis can sometimes feel daunting for clinicians to use within their daily treatment settings. In fact, we've had several podcasts that have addressed this and have asked this question. What are you finding?

Jaime Lee  39:40

I can definitely relate because I am still very new to CA and learning all the terminology. But Jamie and Laura and I are actually working on paper right now, a CAC special issue, because we presented some data at the Clinical Aphasiology Conference and then will have this paper. We'll be submitting to a JSHL on how we're applying CA to texting interactions. That goal is really based around understanding how people with aphasia and their partners are communicating via texting and looking at these naturalistic conversations to see what barriers they're coming across, and what strategies they are using to communicate in this modality.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  40:27

That makes a lot of sense. And it really circles back again to communication partner training. That does not surprise me.

Jaime Lee  40:33

We're seeing some really interesting, creative, and strategic behaviors used both by people with aphasia and their partners. We’re seeing people link to a website, or instead of writing out the name of a restaurant, you know, “meet me here” with a link, or using an emoji to help convey their stance when they can't meet up with a friend. They might have more of an agrammatic production. But that emoji helps show the emotion and we're seeing a lot of people with more severe aphasia using photographs really strategically.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  41:09

So those are the strategies are helping and I'm sure that CA also looks at some of the barriers or breakdowns, right? 

Jaime Lee  41:15

Yes, we're seeing some breakdowns, trouble sources in the CA lingo. In some instances, we see the partner clarify, send a question mark, like, “I don't know what you're saying”. And that allows the person with aphasia, a chance to self-repair, like, “Oops, here, this is what I meant.” And that's really useful. We also have seen some examples of breakdowns that may not get repaired. And we don't know exactly what was happening. In those instances, I suspect there were some cases where maybe the partner picked up the phone and called the person with aphasia, or they had a conversation to work out the breakdown. But we really don't know because we're using these data that were previously collected. So a lot of this does seem to be pointing towards training the partners to provide supports, and also helping people with aphasia be more aware of some of the nonlinguistic tools, and some of the shortcuts that are available, but there's still a lot to learn.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  42:22

Well, Jamie, as you continue to explore this work, I know you're involved in a special project that you do with your senior undergrads at your university program at James Madison. Do you want to describe the student text buddy program? It sounds really engaging.

Jaime Lee  42:38

Sure. This is a program I started here at JMU. JMU has a really big focus on engaging undergrads and research experiences. And we have students who are always asking for opportunities to engage with people with aphasia. Particularly during COVID, there weren't these opportunities. It just wasn't safe. But I know some of the participants from the T-write study and some people with aphasia in our community here in Harrisonburg, were looking for ways to be involved and continue to maybe practice their texting in a non-threatening situation.

So this was a project and I was actually inspired by one of the students in my lab, Lindsay LeTellier. She's getting her master's degree now at the University of New Hampshire. But Lindsay had listened to an interview with one of our participants where she said she wanted a pen pal. And Lindsay said, “Oh, this participant says she wants a pen pal, I'd love to volunteer, I'll be her pen pal.” And I said, “Lindsay, that's great. I love the idea of a pen, pal. But if we're going to do it, let's make it a research project. And let's open it up and go bigger with this.” So Lindsey helped spearhead this program where we paired students with people with aphasia to have a texting pen pal relationship for four weeks. And in order to be able to kind of watch their texts unfold, we gave them a Google Voice number, so that we can watch the texts. 

We've really seen some really interesting things. We’ve only run about 10 pairs, but all of the feedback has been really positive from the people with aphasia, they felt like it was a good experience. And the students said it was a tremendous learning experience. 

We're seeing some interesting things. Using CA, Jamie and I presented this at IARC, sharing what the students/person with aphasia pairs are doing that's resulting in some really natural topic developments and really natural relationship development.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  44:39

Nice! What a great experience, and we'll look forward to hearing more about that. Jamie, I can't believe how this episode has flown by. But I'm going to ask you a last question. What are you excited about in terms of your next steps for studying texting?

Jaime Lee  44:57

I think we definitely want to continue the Text Buddy project because it's such a great learning experience for students, so we'll be continuing to do that. Jamie and I have applied for funding to continue to study texting interactions and use mixed methods, which is a pairing of both of our areas of expertise. I think there's just more to learn, and we're excited to eventually be able to identify some texting supports to help people with aphasia use texting to connect and be more effective in their communication.

 

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  45:35

Well, Jamie, this work is going to be really impactful on the daily lives and the daily ability for people with aphasia to have another mode of support for communicating. So thank you for this exciting work. And congratulations again on your Tavistock award, and I just am grateful that you are our guest for this podcast today. Thank you.

Jaime Lee  45:58

Thank you so much, Ellen. This has been great, thanks.

Ellen Bernstein-Ellis  46:01

It’s been it's been a pleasure and an honor.  So for our listeners, for more information on Aphasia Access and to access our growing body of materials, go to www.aphasiaaccess.org. And if you have an idea for a future podcast series topic, just email us at info@aphasia access.org. And thanks again for your ongoing support of aphasia access.

References and Resources 

Babbitt, E. M., Heinemann, A. W., Semik, P., & Cherney, L. R. (2011). Psychometric properties of the communication confidence rating scale for aphasia (CCRSA): Phase 2. Aphasiology, 25(6-7), 727-735.

Babbitt, E. M., & Cherney, L. R. (2010). Communication confidence in persons with aphasia. Topics in Stroke Rehabilitation, 17(3), 214-223.

Bernstein-Ellis, E. (Host). (2021, July 29). Promoting Conversation and Positive Communication Culture: In conversation with Marion Leaman (No. 73) [Audio podcast episode] In Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations. Resonate. https://aphasiaaccess.libsyn.com/episode-73-conversation-and-promoting-positive-communication-culture-in-conversation-with-marion-leaman

Brown, G., & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse analysis. Cambridge. University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511805226

Fein, M., Bayley, C., Rising, K., & Beeson, P. M. (2020). A structured approach to train text messaging in an individual with aphasia. Aphasiology, 34(1), 102-118.

Kagan, A., Simmons‐Mackie, N., Rowland, A., Huijbregts, M., Shumway, E., McEwen, S., ... & Sharp, S. (2008). Counting what counts: A framework for capturing real‐life outcomes of aphasia intervention. Aphasiology, 22(3), 258-280.

Kagan, A., Winckel, J., Black, S., Felson Duchan, J., Simmons-Mackie, N., & Square, P. (2004). A set of observational measures for rating support and participation in conversation between adults with aphasia and their conversation partners. Topics in Stroke Rehabilitation, 11(1), 67-83.

Kinsey, L. E., Lee, J. B., Larkin, E. M., & Cherney, L. R. (2022). Texting behaviors of individuals with chronic aphasia: A descriptive study. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 31(1), 99-112.

Leaman, M. C., & Edmonds, L. A. (2021). Assessing language in unstructured conversation in people with aphasia: Methods, psychometric integrity, normative data, and comparison to a structured narrative task. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 64(11), 4344-4365.

Lee, J. B., & Cherney, L. R. (2022). Transactional Success in the Texting of Individuals With Aphasia. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 1-18.

Meredith, J. (2019). Conversation analysis and online interaction. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 52(3), 241-256.

Ramsberger, G., & Rende, B. (2002). Measuring transactional success in the conversation of people with aphasia. Aphasiology, 16(3), 337–353. https://doi.org/10.1080/02687040143000636

Todis, B., Sohlberg, M. M., Hood, D., & Fickas, S. (2005). Making electronic mail accessible: Perspectives of people with acquired cognitive impairments, caregivers and professionals. Brain Injury, 19(6), 389-401.

Link to Jaime Lee's University Profile: https://csd.jmu.edu/people/lee.html 

mu.edu/people/lee.html