: Communicative participation can be defined as taking part in life situations where knowledge, information, ideas or feelings are exchanged. Because communication is essential for construction of our place in society and full participation in family and community life, it is mandatory that the field of rehabilitation has a tool to measure communicative participation. Without such a tool, it is not possible to study the psychosocial consequences of communicative impairments, to adequately measure treatment outcomes, or to examine the relationships between communication and more global constructs such as quality of life. During this planning project, the PIs propose to develop a measure of communicative participation for community-dwelling adults with neurological communication disorders. This scale will (1) tap multiple relevant domains, (2) reflect the experiences of adults with neurological communication disorders, (3) be sensitive to change over time and the effects of treatment, (4) be consistent with the communication skills of the responders, and (5) be psychometrically sound. Specifically, the PIs will establish and coordinate a core research and scale development team with specific expertise in communication disorders, the psychosocial impact of disabling conditions, neurological conditions associated with acquired communication problems in adults, scale development, and grant administration. Using qualitative research methods (phenomenology), they will identify and define the essential core domains of the construct of communicative participation. They will create a pool of potential items for the subscales of the new measure, select the response format, develop techniques to compensate for various disabilities, and design a procedure compatible with computer-assisted administration and scoring. They will test procedures for administering the scale and collect data in order to develop a ready-for-field-testing version of the scale. Finally, the PIs will generate a long-term research plan to continue the validation process. This plan will serve as a proposal for a research project grant (R01) funding by NIH.
