The communicative use of iconic face drawings to express emotional and evaluative statements in persons with aphasia

The purpose of this study was to explore (1) if persons with aphasia (PWA) might be able to easily extract emotional meaning from iconic facial drawings, (2) if they are able and willing to use those drawings as a communicative tool to express emotion and evaluative statements with their communication partners, and (3) if their responses differed from individuals with right hemisphere dysfunction (RHD). Ten persons with aphasia and seven persons with RHD participated in the study, along with two control groups of 34 neurotypical adults. The first phase of the study required 24 neurotypical adults to match twelve words describing various emotional states with the facial drawing most closely representing the word. Then, they were asked to copy six of the drawings as a baseline for drawing accuracy. The six drawings which were determined by the control group to have the least amount of ambiguity of meaning were selected as stimuli to the experimental group. In the second phase of the study, PWAs and persons with RHD were asked to match each drawing with a labeled photograph of a person with a similar facial expression. Secondly, to test their ability to produce these drawings, both stroke groups were asked to copy six of the facial drawings. Lastly, the two experimental groups completed a short, anonymous survey about the nature of their communication difficulties and their willingness to use drawing as a communicative tool. The resultant data was compared to a second control group of ten neurotypical adults, and then, to determine the best candidates for this proposed strategy, the two stroke groups were compared with each other. The results demonstrated that both persons with nonfluent aphasia and RHD were able to identify and copy the drawings with moderate success, although only the PWAs were willing to use drawing to communicate