The proposed research evaluates an animal-assisted treatment (AAT) program for adults with aphasia, an acquired language impairment most commonly resulting from stroke that affects more than 2 million Americans. The hallmark impairment for persons with aphasia is word retrieval difficulty, which is sometimes so severe that individuals are able only to produce one or two words. Although by definition a difficulty with words, some of the consequences of aphasia most disruptive to well-being are not the word-finding problems themselves, but the social isolation from which the loss of words can result. This is particularly impactful when considered in light of the fact that individuals with aphasia retain the drive to communicate and the pragmatic communication skills such as use of ?body language?, facial expression, and tone of voice to do so. It is these strengths of persons with aphasia that make them ideal candidates for work with animals, who attend as much if not more to how we communicate than to what we say. The treatment evaluated in the current proposal, the Persons with Aphasia Training Dogs (PATD) Program, is designed to target the psychosocial consequences of aphasia, including loss of self-confidence and social isolation, through harnessing the strengths of persons with aphasia and the benefits of human-animal interaction.
Our specific aims are to 1) determine whether people with aphasia, through participation in the PATD program, can learn and implement positive reinforcement techniques to train dogs in basic obedience skills, and 2) assess feasibility metrics including program acceptability/satisfaction. We will accomplish these aims by enrolling people with aphasia in weekly treatment sessions during which they will team with a speech-language pathologist and a family- or shelter-dwelling dog to receive training in positive-reinforcement dog training techniques. We will assess program acceptability with our primary outcome measure, the Assessment of Living with Aphasia (Kagan et al., 2010), complemented by self-report of participants? PATD experience. Our hypotheses are that people with aphasia will successfully implement positive reinforcement techniques for dog training and that participation in the PATD program will result in increases in confidence and social engagement for the participants. The expected outcomes of aims 1 and 2 will demonstrate the feasibility of administering, and quantifying the effects of, canine-assisted aphasia treatment. To our knowledge, there is no other program of this kind for persons with aphasia and this is the first study of AAT for persons with aphasia to contribute to the evidence-base a clearly-defined and replicable method for incorporating animals into aphasia treatment. The combination of these expected outcomes will make an important positive impact by demonstrating the effects of human-canine interaction as part of aphasia treatment and by providing the foundation upon which to expand aphasia rehabilitation research targeting handicapping effects of aphasia.
The lives of more than 2 million Americans are affected by aphasia, an acquired language impairment most commonly resulting from stroke that affects the ability to remember and express words. The well-being of these individuals is affected not just by the loss of words that is aphasia, but also the loss of friendships and opportunities for community engagement in which the loss of words can result. This study evaluates an animal-assisted treatment, The Persons with Aphasia Training Dogs (PATD) Program, designed to target the psychosocial consequences of aphasia by training participants in positive reinforcement dog training techniques that harness new skill learning and the advantages of interaction with family- or shelter-dwelling dogs to increase confidence and social engagement to support participants in living well with aphasia.
