Introduction: Conversation treatment for individuals with aphasia (IwAs) aims to enhance language and communication skills within naturalistic settings. Group dynamics, including psychosocial support (PSS) and vicarious learning (VL), are important components of this treatment. However, the lack of established aphasia-friendly methods for quantifying group dynamics impedes understanding of its contribution to treatment efficacy. This study addresses three key research goals: (1) Can group dynamics be reliably quantified? (2) Do measures of group dynamics vary with group size or time? (3) Are group dynamics linked to changes in self-reported psychosocial health measures?
Methods: IwAs were assigned to participate in either a large group or dyadic condition as part of a larger study. Participants completed multiple standardized assessments before and after receiving conversation treatment for one hour twice a week for ten weeks. A coding system was developed to track PSS and VL during sessions. Video recordings of sessions at the start (Session 2) and end (Session 19) of the treatment period were analyzed for five large groups and six dyads, with seven additional dyads coded for Session 19 after reliability was confirmed. Intrarater and interrater reliability were assessed by recoding 21% of the videos randomly.
Results: To address the first research goal, group dynamics were defined and then a code was created to represent occurrences of PSS and VL. After establishing a reliable coding system, instances of PSS and VL were compared across size conditions to address the second research goal. The results suggested that PSS differed between conditions later in treatment, but VL did not. For research goal three, the data suggest that large groups experience larger gains in quality of life measures, possibly due to increased exposure to PSS.
Conclusion: Findings indicate that group dynamics can be reliably tracked and used for quantitative analysis. PSS was more common in groups than dyads later in the 10 week treatment period, but VL did not vary across conditions or at the start or end of treatment. Further, there is some evidence that PSS in larger groups contributes to improvements in quality of life measures. / Communication Sciences
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TEMPLE/oai:scholarshare.temple.edu:20.500.12613/10333 |
| Date | 04 1900 |
| Creators | Sharkey, Caitlin A |
| Contributors | DeDe, Gayle, Maas, Edwin, Martin, Nadine, Hoover, Elizabeth |
| Publisher | Temple University. Libraries |
| Source Sets | Temple University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 51 pages |
| Rights | IN COPYRIGHT- This Rights Statement can be used for an Item that is in copyright. Using this statement implies that the organization making this Item available has determined that the Item is in copyright and either is the rights-holder, has obtained permission from the rights-holder(s) to make their Work(s) available, or makes the Item available under an exception or limitation to copyright (including Fair Use) that entitles it to make the Item available., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/10295, Theses and Dissertations |
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