What is Functional Communication? A Theoretical Framework for Real-World Communication Applied to Aphasia Rehabilitation

AbstractAphasia is an impairment of language caused by acquired brain damage such as stroke or traumatic brain injury, that affects a person ’s ability to communicate effectively. The aim of rehabilitation in aphasia is to improve everyday communication, improving an individual’s ability to function in their day-to-day life. For that reason, a thorough understanding of naturalistic communication and its underlying mechanisms is imper ative. The field of aphasiology currently lacks an agreed, comprehensive, theoretically founded definition of communication. Instead, multiple disparate interpretations offunctional communication are used. We argue that this makes it nearly impossible to validly and reliably assess a person ’s communicative performance, to target this behaviour through therapy, and to measure improvements post-therapy. In this article we propose a structured, theoretical approach to defining the concept of functional communication. We argue for a view of communication as “situated language use”, borrowed from empirical psycholinguistic studies with non-brain damaged adults. This framework defines language use as: (1) interactive, (2) multimodal, and (3) contextual. Existing research on each component of the framework from non-brain damaged adults and people with aphasia is reviewed. The con sequences of adopting this approach to assessment and therapy for aphasia rehabilitation are discussed. The aim of this article is to encourage a more systematic, co...

Source: Neuropsychology Review - January 25, 2022 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research