I observed the Cary Aphasia Group located at the Triangle Aphasia Project (TAP) home office on April 22nd from 10:30am-12:00pm led by Betsy Janes. Participants included two males and four females varying in ages, backgrounds, and types of aphasia. Betsy Janes described the overall goal of the Cary Aphasia Group was to increase group members’ functional communication skills through a life participation approach. Papathanasiou and Coppens (2017) stated that services within the life participation approach are available for all individuals affected by aphasia and at all stages of life. Similarly, the Cary Aphasia Group incorporated the participants’ family, friends, and caregivers in the support group. Additionally, the participants stages…show more content… The group treatment opened with a brief period of socialization prior to structured activities, which enhanced social participation and engagement in community living. It was noticed that the group members have developed relationships with other aphasia group members. Secondly, the participants would take turns sharing good or bad news from the previous week. Prior to sharing the news, the participants were suppose to write it out on paper to assist with their writing deficits. This activity was similar to examples of structured diaries provided in Aphasia and Related Neurogenic Communication Disorders. Word scramble activities such as creating new words from the word “Earth Day” associated with stimulating word retrieval was also incorporated in the support group. Throughout the support group, the group leader used multiple multimodal communication strategies: photographs, number lines, drawing, letter and syllable cues and gestures. For example, when asking questions about the rain forest, the group leader provided a map of the world as a visual aid. To assist with reading skills, the group leader incorporated current news articles for the participants to read aloud and discuss
