Effects of familiarity and presentation mode on auditory-visual speech recognition in adults with aphasia

Aphasia is a language disorder that has been acquired by about 2 million Americans, most commonly from stroke or traumatic brain injury. Research demonstrates that adults with aphasia can continue improving their speech and language for years after their stroke with therapy, which is contrary to traditional thought. Therefore, people with aphasia and their loved ones are searching for ways to continue speech and language improvements even after insurance runs out, and many are turning to technological therapy programs. However, there is little research on the skills people with aphasia need to benefit from these technological therapy programs. The current study reports on one of these skills, auditory visual speech perception. Six adults with aphasia completed a series of speech recognition tasks in four conditions: live familiar speaker, live unfamiliar speaker, recorded familiar speaker, and recorded unfamiliar speaker. Comparisons between these groups indicate that there was a statistically significant difference in performance between these groups. Results demonstrate that the live familiar condition is the most favorable condition, and that presentation mode (live v. recorded speech) may be more important than familiarity. Implications for daily life and treatment (including technological therapy programs) are discussed in the study