Browsing by Author "Kuusisto, Silja"

Background and aims. Aphasia is a language disorder caused by brain damage that affects the production and understanding of a person's speech and can manifest itself in different areas of linguistic skills. Difficulty finding words is the most common symptom of aphasia. Non-fluent aphasia is a syndrome specifically affecting the production of speech, in which speech is slow and contains a lot of pauses and word searching. Repair sequences refer to the problems that arise in conversations and their solution. In an aphasia conversation, repair sequences typically last a long time, for several turns, and they may not always be resolved at all. Repair sequences and self-corrections produced by a person with aphasia (PWA) can tell about the severity of aphasia and rehabilitation abilities. The aim of this study was to investigate the number and quality of the repair sequences of a PWA in the before and after a speech therapy intervention, as well as the possible change that occurs in the repair sequences during the intervention. The intervention consisted of 27 treatment sessions of contextual priming -therapy. Methods. The study was a case study, the subject of which was one person with non-fluent aphasia. The research material consisted of the video material of the beginning and end conversations of the speech therapy intervention, which was a total of 55 minutes and 26 seconds. The material was analyzed with conversation analysis and annotated with the ELAN program using a template created for the COMPAIR project. In the annotation, attention was paid to the repair sequences and correction phenomena in the PWA’s speech. Results and conclusions. No major change was observed in the number of repair sequences. In the end conversation, the repair sequences were on average longer, and there were more of repair sequence compaired to the beginning conversation. There were more turn-internal pauses within the speech of the PWA in the end conversation than in the beginning. In the end conversation, the subject produced 34 % more self-initiations compared to the beginning conversation. The other-initiations produced by the speech therapist remained similar both quantitatively and qualitatively. A qualitative change was observed in the subject's and the speech therapist's way of handling problems in the themes that were discussed in both the beginning and end conversations. In the end conversation, the repair sequences were left more often unsolved, and the speech therapist offered more other-corrections. Between the beginning and end conversations of the speech therapy intervention, a change could be observed both in the quantity and quality of correction phenomena.In addition, information was obtained on what kind of repair sequences appear in the speech of an non-fluent PWA in an institutional interaction situation.