Aphasia Access Conversations

Aphasia Access
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Aphasia Access Conversations brings you the latest aphasia resources, tips, and a-ha moments from Life Participation professionals who deliver way more than stroke and aphasia facts. Topics include aphasia group treatment ideas, communication access strategies, plus ways to grow awareness and funds for your group aphasia therapy program. ​This podcast is produced by Aphasia Access. Search our courses, resources, and events by keywords at https://bit.ly/aphaccacademy.

  1. 12/09/2025

    Episode 135: From Technical Manuals to Poetry: In Conversation with Mark Harder

    This episode features Mark Harder, an individual with aphasia who has developed numerous programs to engage individuals with aphasia in returning to meaningful life activities. Mark shared his personal experience with aphasia following a stroke and heart attack, discussing his recovery journey and the role of poetry in his healing process. He described his involvement in various aphasia support initiatives, including poetry groups, conferences, and advocacy work. Mark's efforts to raise awareness and support others with aphasia have led to the creation of multiple programs and events, demonstrating his commitment to the aphasia community.

    40 min

  2. 11/18/2025

    Episode 134: Inner Speech and Aphasia with Mackenzie Fama

    Lyssa Rome talks with Dr. Mackenzie Fama about the experience of inner speech for people with aphasia.

    38 min

  3. 10/14/2025

    Episode 133: Diversity Beyond Race with Jose Centeno

    In this episode you will discover: Diversity Means Everyone - Race is just one piece. Consider how age, language, immigration status, religion, sexual orientation, and geography intersect to shape each person's experience with aphasia. Go Into the Community to Build Trust - Sustainable partnerships require leaving your institution and showing up consistently. Visit centers, share meals, and invest time where people gather. Trust develops gradually through authentic presence. Listen to Real-Life Struggles First - Before starting therapy protocols, hear what families actually face: shifted gender roles, children as language brokers, lack of community aphasia awareness, and disrupted family dynamics. Train Future Clinicians Differently - If you're building or revising academic programs, front-load diversity with a foundational intersectionality course in semester one, then integrate these principles across every subsequent course and clinical practicum.   If you've ever wondered how to better support multilingual families navigating aphasia, or felt uncertain about cultural considerations in your practice, this conversation will give you both the framework and the practical insights you need. Welcome to the Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Katie Strong, a faculty member at Central Michigan University where I lead the Strong Story Lab, and I'm a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources.   I'm today's host for an episode that tackles one of the most important conversations happening in our field right now - how do we truly serve the increasingly diverse communities that need aphasia care? We're featuring Dr. Jose Centeno, whose work is reshaping how we think about equity, social justice, and what it really means to expand our diversity umbrella. Dr. Centeno isn't just talking about these issues from an ivory tower - he's in the trenches, working directly with communities and training the next generation of clinicians to do better. Before we get into the conversation, let me tell you a bit more about our guest. Dr. Jose Centeno is Professor in the Speech-Language Pathology Program at Rutgers University. What makes his work unique is how he bridges the worlds of clinical practice and research, focusing on an often overlooked intersection: what happens when stroke survivors who speak multiple languages need aphasia care?   Dr. Centeno is currently exploring a critical question - what barriers do Latinx families face when caring for loved ones with post-stroke aphasia, and what actually helps them navigate daily life? His newest initiative takes this work directly into the community, where he's training students to bring brain health activities to underserved older adults in Newark's community centers.   As an ASHA Fellow and frequent international speaker, Dr. Centeno has made it his mission to ensure that aphasia research and care truly serve diverse communities. His extensive work on professional committees reflects his commitment to making the field more inclusive and culturally responsive. So let's get into the conversation.   Katie Strong: As we get started, I love hearing about how you came into doing this work, and I know when we spoke earlier you started out studying verb usage after stroke and very impairment-based sort of way of coming about things. And now you're doing such different work with that centers around equity and minoritized populations. I was hoping you could tell our listeners about the journey and what sparked that shift for you.   Jose Centeno: That's a great question. In fact, I very often start my presentations at conferences, explaining to people, explaining to the audience, how I got to where I am right now, because I did my doctoral work focused on verb morphology, because it was very interesting. It is an area that I found very, very interesting. But then I realized that the data that I collected for my doctorate, and led to different articles, was connected to social linguistics. I took several linguistics courses in the linguistics department for my doctorate, and I needed to look at the results of my doctoral work in terms of sociolinguistic theory and cognition. And that really motivated me to look at more at discourse and how the way that we talk can have an impact on that post stroke language use. So, I kept writing my papers based on my doctoral data, and I became interested in finding out how our colleagues working with adults with aphasia that are bilingual, were digesting all this literature. I thought, wait a minute. Anyway, I'm writing about theory in verb morphology, I wonder where the gaps are. What do people need? Are people reading this type of work? And I started searching the literature, and I found very little in terms of assessing strengths and limitations of clinical work with people with aphasia.   And what I found out is that our colleagues in childhood bilingualism have been doing that work. They have been doing a lot of great work trying to find out what the needs are when you work with bilingual children in educational settings. So that research served as my foundational literature to create my work. And then I adopted that to identifying where the strengths and needs working with people by new people with aphasia were by using that type of work that worked from bilingual children. And I adapted it, and I got some money to do some pilot work at the from the former school where I was. And with that money I recruited some friends that were doing research with bilingual aphasia to help me create this survey. So that led to several papers and very interesting data.   And the turning point that I always share, and I highlight was an editorial comment that I got when I when I submitted, I think, the third or fourth paper based on the survey research that I did. The assessment research. And one of the reviewers said, "you should take a look at the public health literature more in depth to explain what's going on in terms of the needs in the bilingual population with aphasia". So, I started looking at that and that opened up a huge area of interest.   Katie Strong: I love that.   Jose Centeno: Yeah, that's where I ended up, you know, from an editorial comment based on the studies of survey research. And that comment motivated me to see what the gaps were more in depth. And that was in 2015 when that paper came out. I kept working, and that data led to some special issues that I invited colleagues from different parts of the world to contribute. And then three years later, Rutgers invited me to apply for this position to start a diversity focused program at Rutgers, speech language pathology. At Rutgers I met a woman that has been my mentor in qualitative research. Pamela Rothpletz-Puglia is in nutrition, and she does qualitative, mixed methods research. So, her work combined with my interest in identifying where the needs were, led me to identify the needs in the work with people with aphasia through the caregivers using her methodology. And I'll come talk more about it, because it's related to a lot of different projects that I am pursuing right now.   Katie Strong: I love this. So, it sounds like, well, one you got a really positive experience from a reviewer, which is great news.   Jose Centeno: Well, it was! It's a good thing that you say that because when we submit articles, you get a mixed bag of reviews sometimes. But, this person was very encouraging. And some of the other reviews were not as encouraging, but this was very encouraging, and I was able to work on that article in such a way that got published and it has been cited quite a bit, and it's, I think it's the only one that has pretty much collected very in depth data in terms of this area.   Katie Strong: Yeah, well, it sounds like that really widened your lens in how you were viewing things and taking an approach to thinking about the information that you had obtained.   Jose Centeno: And it led to looking at the public health literature and actually meeting Pamela. In fact, I just saw her last week, and we met because we're collaborating on different projects. I always thank her because we met, when our Dean created an Equity Committee and she invited the two of us and somebody else to be to run that committee. And when Pamela and I talked, I said to her, "that qualitative work that you are doing can be adapted to my people with aphasia and their caregivers". And that's how we collaborated, we put a grant proposal together, we got the money, and that led to the current study.   Katie Strong: I love that, which we're going to talk about in a little bit. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I love it. Okay, well, before we get into that, you know, one of the things I was hoping you could talk about are the demographics of people living with aphasia is becoming really increasingly more diverse. And I was hoping you could talk about population trends that are driving the change or challenges and opportunities that this presents for our field.   Jose Centeno: Yeah, that is actually something that I've been very interested in after looking at the public health literature because that led to looking at the literature in cardiology, nursing, social work, psychology, in terms of diversity, particularly the census data that people in public health were using to discuss what was going on in terms of the impact of population trends in healthcare. And I realized when I started looking at those numbers that and interestingly, the Census published later. The Census was published in 2020, several years after I started digging into the public health literature. The Census published this fantastic report where they the Census Bureau, discussed how population trends were going

    54 min

  4. 09/09/2025

    Episode 132: Group Treatment with Dr. Liz Hoover

    Lyssa Rome is a speech-language pathologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is on staff at the Aphasia Center of California, where she facilitates groups for people with aphasia and their care partners. She owns an LPAA-focused private practice and specializes in working with people with neurogenic communication disorders. She has worked in acute hospital, skilled nursing, and continuum of care settings. Prior to becoming an SLP, Lyssa was a public radio journalist, editor, and podcast producer. In this episode, Lyssa Rome interviews Liz Hoover about group treatment for aphasia.   Guest info Dr. Liz Hoover is a clinical professor of speech language and hearing sciences and the clinical director of the Aphasia Resource Center at Boston University. She holds board certification from the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences, or ANCDS, and is an ASHA fellow. She was selected as a 2024 Tavistock Trust for Aphasia Distinguished Scholar, USA and Canada. Liz was a founding member of Aphasia Access and served on the board for several years. She has 30 years of experience working with people with aphasia and other communication disorders across the continuum of care. She's contributed to numerous presentations and publications, and most of her work focuses on the effectiveness of group treatment for individuals with aphasia.   Listener Take-aways In today's episode you will: Describe the evidence supporting aphasia conversation groups as an effective interventions for linguistic and psychosocial outcomes. Differentiate the potential benefits of dyads versus larger groups in relation to client goals. Identify how aphasia severity and group composition can influence treatment outcomes.   Edited transcript Lyssa Rome Welcome to the Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Lyssa Rome. I'm a speech language pathologist on staff at the Aphasia Center of California and I see clients with aphasia and other neurogenic communication disorders in my LPAA-focused private practice. I'm also a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources.   I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Dr. Elizabeth Hoover, who was selected as a 2024 Tavistock Trust for Aphasia Distinguished Scholar, USA and Canada.   Liz Hoover is a clinical professor of speech language and hearing sciences and the clinical director of the Aphasia Resource Center at Boston University. She holds board certification from the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences, or ANCDS, and is an ASHA fellow. Liz was a founding member of Aphasia Access and served on the board for several years. She has 30 years of experience working with people with aphasia and other communication disorders across the continuum of care. She's contributed to numerous presentations and publications, and most of her work focuses on the effectiveness of group treatment for individuals with aphasia. Liz, welcome back to the podcast.   So in 2017 you spoke with Ellen Bernstein Ellis about intensive comprehensive aphasia programs or ICAPs and inter professional practice at the Aphasia Resource Center at BU and treatment for verb production using VNest, among other topics. So this time, I thought we could focus on some of your recent research with Gayle DeDe and others on conversation group treatment.   Liz Hoover Sounds good.   Lyssa Rome All right, so my first question is how you became interested in studying group treatment?   Liz Hoover Yeah, I actually have Dr. Jan Avent to thank for my interest in groups. She was my aphasia professor when I was a graduate student doing my masters at Cal State East Bay. As you know, Cal State East Bay is home to the Aphasia Treatment Program. When I was there, it preceded ATP. But I was involved in her cooperative group treatment study, and as a graduate student, I was allowed to facilitate some of her groups in this study, and I was involved in the moderate-to-severe group. She was also incredibly generous at sharing that very early body of work for socially oriented group treatments and exposing us to the work of John Lyons and Audrey Holland. Jan also invited us to go to a conference on group treatment that was run by the Life Link group. It's out of Texas Woman's University, Delaina Walker-Batson and Jean Ford. And it just was a life changing and pivotal experience for me in recognizing how group treatment could not be just an adjunct to individual goals, but actually be the type of treatment that is beneficial for folks with aphasia. So it's been a love my entire career.   Lyssa Rome And now I know you've been studying group treatment in this randomized control trial. This was a collaborative research project, so I'm hoping you can tell us a little bit more about that project. What were your research questions? Tell us a little bit more.   Liz Hoover Yeah, so thank you. I'll just start by acknowledging that the work is funded by two NIDCD grants, and to acknowledge their generosity, and then also acknowledge Dr. Gayle DeDe, who is currently at Temple University. She is a co- main PI in this work, and of course it wouldn't have happened without her. So you know, Gayle and I have known each other for many, many years. She's a former student, doctoral student at Boston University, and by way of background, she and I were interested in working together and interested in trying to build on some evidence for group treatment. I think we drank the Kool Aid early on, as you might say.   And you know, just looking at the literature, there have been two trials on the evidence for this kind of work. And so those of us who are involved in groups, know that it's helpful for people with aphasia, our clients tell us how much they enjoy it, and they vote with their feet, right? In that they come back for more treatments. And aphasia centers have grown dramatically in the last couple of decades in the United States.   So clearly we know they work, but what we don't know is why they work. What are those essential ingredients, and how is that driving the change that we think we see? And from a personal perspective, that's important for me to understand and for us to have explained in the literature, because until we can justify it in the scientific terms, I worry it will forever be a private-pay adjunct that is only accessible to people who can pay for it, or who are lucky enough to be close enough to a center that can get them access—virtual groups aside, and the advent of that—but it's important that I think this intervention is validated to the scientific community in our field.   So we designed this trial. It's a randomized control trial to help build the research evidence for conversation, group treatment, and to also look at the critical components. This was inspired by a paper actually from Nina Simmons Mackie in 2014 and Linda Worrell. They looked at group treatment and showed that there were at least eight first-tier elements that changed the variability or on which we might modify group conversation treatment. And so, you know, if we're all doing things differently, how can we predict the change, and how can we expect outcomes?   Lyssa Rome So I was hoping you could describe this randomized, controlled trial. You know, it was collaborative, and I'm curious about what you and your collaborators had as your research questions.   Liz Hoover So our primary aims of the study were to understand if communication or conversation treatment is associated with changes in measures of communicative ability and psychosocial measures. So that's a general effectiveness question. And then to look in more deeply to see if the group size or the group composition or even the individual profile of the client with aphasia influences the expected outcome.   Because if you think about group treatment, the size of the group is not an insignificant issue, right? So a small group environment of two people has much more… it still gives you some peer support from the other individual with aphasia, but you have many opportunities for conversational turns and linguistic and communication practice and to drive the saliency of the conversation in a direction that's meaningful and useful and informative.   Whereas in a large group environment of say, six to eight people with aphasia and two clinicians, you might see much more influence in the needed social support and vicarious learning and shared lived experience and so forth, and still have some opportunity for communication and linguistic practice. So there's conflicting hypotheses there about which group environment might be better for one individual over another.   And then there's the question of, well, who's in that group with you? Does that matter? Some of the literature says that if you have somebody with a different profile of aphasia, it can set up a therapeutic benefit of the helper experience, where you can gain purpose by enabling and supporting and being a facilitator of somebody else with aphasia.   But if you're in a group environment where your peers have similar conversation goals as you, maybe your practice turns, and your ability to learn vicariously from their conversation turns is greater. So again, two conflicting theories here about what might be best. So we decided to try and manipulate these group environments and measure outcomes on several different communication measures. We selected measures that were linguistic, functional, and psychosocial.   We collected data over four years. The first two years, we enrolled people with all different kinds of profiles of aphasia. The only inclusion criteria from a communication perspective, as you needed some ability to comprehend at a sentence level, so that you could

    41 min

  5. 08/19/2025

    Episode 131: Math + Aphasia: A Conversation with Tami Brancamp and Dave Brancamp

    In this episode you will discover: Math IS Language - It's in Our Wheelhouse Math has syntax (order of operations), semantics (number meanings), and involves memory and executive function - all areas SLPs already assess and treat. If you can help with language, you have transferable skills for math therapy. Start Simple with What You Have You don't need special materials or extensive math training. Use a deck of cards, dice, and real-life examples like restaurant receipts. Make numbers "friendly" (round $18.72 to $20) and let clients show you multiple ways to solve problems. Address Your Own Math Anxiety First Most SLPs feel uncomfortable with math, but clients need this support for life participation (paying bills, calculating tips, telling time). Acknowledge your discomfort, start with basics you DO know, and remember - if you avoid it, you can't help your clients who want to work on it. If you've ever felt your palms get sweaty when a client asks for help with numbers, this conversation is for you. Welcome to the Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Katie Strong, a faculty member at Central Michigan University where I lead the Strong Story Lab. I'm today's host for an episode that might just change how you think about math anxiety - both your own and your clients'. We're featuring Tami Brancamp and Dave Brancamp, who are doing pioneering work at the intersection of aphasia and mathematics. Before you hit pause because you're having flashbacks to algebra class, stay with me! This research shows us that the language of math is exactly that - language - which puts it squarely in our wheelhouse as SLPs. We'll explore how to support our clients with aphasia who are struggling with everyday math tasks like counting change, telling time, or balancing a checkbook. And yes, we'll tackle the elephant in the room: addressing our own math insecurities so we can show up confidently for our clients. Let me tell you about our guests. Tami Brancamp is an associate professor at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine and founder of the Aphasia Center of Nevada. Her research focuses on identity in aphasia and rehabilitating everyday math skills. Dave Brancamp spent over 15 years as a junior high math teacher and later became Director of Standards at the Nevada Department of Education. Together, they co-founded Aphasia + Math, where they're exploring how language and mathematics intersect for people with aphasia. Okay now let's get this Aphasia + Math conversation started! Katie Strong: Tami and Dave, welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited for you to be here today.   Dave Brancamp: Thank you.   Tami Brancamp: We are both super excited to have a chance to talk about things that are different, right?   Katie Strong: Right. I do have to say, I don't know if it was a rash, but I did get a little bit nervous coming into the conversation, because I think I may be one of those SLPs that feel a little bit uncomfortable with math.   Tami Brancamp: Well, this SLP also is uncomfortable with math, so we can be uncomfortable together. And we'll let the math dude guide us through some of the things.   Dave Brancamp: And it will be fun. By the time you're done, I want to see that smile that you have on your face.   Katie Strong: Well, let's jump in and have you share a little bit about how you came to researching aphasia and math.   Tami Brancamp: Well, I have loved working with people who have aphasia since the beginning of my graduate studies. And then probably, like most of us, there's a few clients who've really hit your heart. One of them, I don't recall her name, and that's okay, but she had a stroke, had aphasia. She had had great recover physically, and her language was quite good, some anomia. But she's a banker, and she could not process numbers, and she was angry. I'm a newbie, I didn't understand the emotional piece of stroke survivor, aphasia. can't do my job well. But she was angry, and I felt so helpless. I didn't know what to do to help her. You know, I could pull a workbook off the shelf or something, but it didn't feel right. You know, she could do calculations, but couldn't do her job. And I always felt so very, very helpless over the years.   And the other part that came to start looking at this was teaching in a speech pathology program, undergrad and grad. And in class, maybe we're doing an averaging or something to get a score. I'm not sure if we start talking math, and I would see these students, and their eyes would just like, pop up, like, "Oh my gosh, she's asking me to do math." And like, deer in the headlights. So I'm like, "What is this?" Every semester, I would do kind of an informal survey when we would do a little bit of math, and I say, "Okay, so how many of you don't do math? Raise your hand or are afraid of math?" And it would be at least two thirds to three quarters of the class every single semester, and I'm like, "Okay, there's something here." Like, if I'm afraid of math, how am I going to help my clients remediate that in an efficient way? Right? I'm going to avoid it. If I can, I'll go do other things that are important.   So those were, like, the two big things, and then happened to be married to a math dude. And I wondered why are we not combining our skill sets? Because I would come home and I would share with Dave. I'm like "Dave, the majority of my students are afraid to do math or uncomfortable doing math." And it's not complicated math. We're not talking quadratic equations or things I don't even know what they mean anymore. And we would talk about it a little bit, and we talk about math attitudes and perceptions and how we develop our math skills. And I'm like, "There's something here."But I was never taught, how do you remediate number processing? Calculations? right? But yet, I would have multiple clients say, "Hey, Tammy, I can't do numbers." "Yeah, how do I do this?" And there really wasn't anything the literature that told me how to do it. So, I would talk to Dave, and then, just over the years, I'm like, "Okay, we need to do something with this. We really do." And I don't know what that means, because I'm not most comfortable with math, it is not my passion. We're very opposite. I think I shared like, Dave has math and fun in the same language, and then in the same sentence, I'm like, "they don't go together in my brain." So we're very, very opposite. But you know, you can speak for yourself how you grew up and you had to learn how to embrace math, and having good teachers helped when we were younger, and having poor teachers or teachers with different attitudes also left a lasting impression. But when you think about it, whether it's, you know, cooking, driving, banking, living, going to grocery store, restaurants, everything we do all the time, it all involves numbers to some impact, you know, to some effect. And our folks with aphasia, again, not everybody, but the majority of them, will still have an impact with acalculia, difficulty processing numbers and calculating and transcoding, you know, saying, saying the numbers. So, we started to look at it.   I did have a had a gift of time with Audrey Holland. So that was my beautiful, like, for many of us, a mentor, you know, she had her three-pronged stool, like the different parts of aphasia. And Dave and I started dividing it up, like, what were the parts we thought involve, you know, aphasia and numbers. And we did think about the math and language math skills, making it fun, but also those influencing elements, like attitudes and perceptions. So, we started just like, "How do we look at this?" Because it's really overwhelming just from the beginning, you know, and just pulling that workbook off the shelf didn't do it for me. You're allowed to speak on that. (Laughter)   Dave Brancamp That's one of my passions, obviously, the whole math side. But pulling a workbook is an unfortunate because if someone starts to practice something wrong, they'll repeat that practice, and now it's very difficult to get them to correct a habit, basically that you've formed. And sometimes it's like that nails on a chalkboard? That's what it feels like to me when I hear it. I'm like, "Oh, don't do that." Because if they're doing it wrong, like, 20 times, 10 times, even then it performs a habit that's real hard for them to go, "Well, but I thought I got them all right."   Katie Strong: Yeah.   Dave Brancamp: Because I think we can all go back to math and you come up unless it was something really, really difficult in at least in our early years of math. We all came up with an answer. And that's how it feels on a worksheet that might have like just adding single digit numbers, if you make an error, you won't know until someone either corrects it or asks you, "How did you get there?" And to me, that's where it became more important. And then I had to learn how to do what do you call it? aphasia friendly language, you know? So, math folks usually speak in short sentences, so that helps. But we'll run a whole bunch of sentences together. If I give you the best example. I know we're going to talk a little bit about that math perception quiz, the difference between us on that question, I think it says "I would prefer to do an assignment in math rather than write an essay." I'm the person to give me that math assignment. 100%. Tammy is like, give me the essay!   Katie Strong: And I have to say I'm right there with Tammy.   Tami Brancamp I think so, as speech pathologists, we learned about the pedagogy of language and language development. We can analyze it. We can treat it. We can assess it. And then I talked to Dave, and he goes, "Well, there's this whole math I know there's a math pedagogy, and there's this whole developmental progression of how we learn math." But "Really, okay, well, I've never learned that, right?" "No, you learn this before you learn that." We lived it, we j

    57 min

  6. 07/15/2025

    Episode 130: A tool for sneaky good interprofessional learning and collaboration: In Conversation with Hillary Sample and Dr. Steven Richman

    Take aways: Learn about Hilary and Steve's journey to enhance care for people with aphasia. Learn about communication access as a health equity issue. Identify systematic gaps and the disconnect between training and real world needs of people with aphasia. Learn about the development of the MedConcerns app. Get sneaky! Learn how the MedConcerns app can serve four functions simultaneously: 1) meeting the needs of someone with aphasia 2) serving as a tool that providers can use to communicate with people with aphasia 3) providing education to providers who learn about aphasia as they use the app 4) bringing SLPs and other providers together to meet the needs of people with aphasia   Welcome to the Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast. I'm Jerry Hoepner. I'm a professor at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and co-facilitator of the Chippewa Valley Aphasia Camp, Blugold Brain Injury Group, Mayo Brain Injury Group, Young Person's Brain Injury Group, and Thursday Night Poets.  I'm also a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources. I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Hilary Sample and Dr. Steven Richman to discuss their app, MedConcerns. We're really excited to share this with you, so I'll jump into introducing them.   Hilary G. Sample, MA, CCC-SLP Hilary is a speech-language pathologist, educator, and co-creator of MedConcerns, a communication support app that helps people with aphasia express medical concerns and participate more fully in their care. The app was born out of her work in inpatient rehabilitation, where she saw firsthand how often individuals with communication challenges struggled to share urgent medical needs. Recognizing that most providers lacked the tools to support these conversations, she partnered with physician Dr. Steven Richman to create a practical, accessible solution. Hilary also serves as an adjunct instructor at Cleveland State University.   Steven Leeds Richman, MD Dr. Steven Richman is a hospitalist physician and co-creator of MedConcerns, a communication support app that helps people with aphasia express medical concerns and participate more fully in their care. With nearly two decades of experience in inpatient rehabilitation, he saw how often communication barriers prevented patients from being heard. In partnership with speech-language pathologist Hilary Sample, he helped translate core medical assessments into an accessible tool that supports clearer, more effective provider-patient communication.     Transcript: (Please note that this conversation has been auto-transcribed. While we do our best to review the text for accuracy, there may be some minor errors. Thanks for your understanding.)   Jerry Hoepner: Well, Hello, Hillary and Steve. Really happy to have you on this aphasia access conversations podcast. With me, I'm really looking forward to this conversation. It's maybe a year or 2 in the making, because I think this was at the previous Aphasia Access Leadership Summit in North Carolina. That we initially had some discussions about this work. And then life happens right? So really glad to be having this conversation today. Hilary Sample: And we're really glad to be here.   Jerry Hoepner: Absolutely. Maybe I'll start out just asking a little bit about your background, Hillary, in terms of how you connected with the life participation approach and aphasia access and how that relates to your personal story.   Hilary Sample: Sure, so I haven't been in the field long. I graduated in 2019 and began my career immediately in inpatient rehab. I have to remember. It's talk slow day, and I'm going to make sure that I apply that as I speak, both for me and for listeners. So I began on the stroke unit, primarily in an inpatient rehab setting, and I've worked there for the majority of my career. I came in as many, probably in our field do, trained and educated in more of an impairment based approach but quickly when you work with people, and they let you know who they are and what they need. The people that I worked with on the stroke unit, the people with aphasia let me know that they needed more of a life participation approach. You know I learned how vital it was to support communication and to help him, you know, help them access their lives, because most of the time I entered the room. They had something they wanted to communicate, and they had been waiting for someone who had those skills to support communication in order to get that message across. So it wasn't about drills it was about. It was about helping them to communicate with the world, so that I spent more and more time just trying to develop my own skills so that I could be that professional for them and that support. And then that took me. You know that it just became my passion, and I have a lot of room to improve still today, but it's definitely where my interest lies and at the same time I noticed that in general in our hospital there was a lack of communication supports used, and so I thought that in investing in my own education and training, I could help others as well. And so I started doing some program development to that end as well with training and education for healthcare staff.   Jerry Hoepner: I just love the fact. And actually, our listeners will love the fact that it was patients who connected with you, people with aphasia, who connected with you and encouraged you to move towards the life participation approach, and how you learn together and how that's become your passion. That's just a really great outcome when people can advocate for themselves in that way. That's fantastic.     Hilary Sample: Yeah, it really meant a lot to me to be able to receive that guidance and know that, you know there's an interest in helping them to let you know what they want from therapy, and that was there. But a lot of times the selections were impairment based, and then we. But there was something wrong, and we needed to uncover that. And that was, you know, that was the push I needed to be able to better support them.   Jerry Hoepner: Yeah, that's really great, Steve. I'm interested in your story, too. And also how you came to connect with Hillary.   Steve: I started as a trained as a family physician, had a regular outpatient office for a number of years, and then transitioned into inpatient rehab. That's where I really started to meet some people with aphasia. For the 1st time. Hilary and I have talked a few times about my training and education about aphasia before we met each other, and it was really minimal in Med school. They had lectures about stroke and brain injury, and some of the adverse effects you might get from that. And they, I'm sure, mentioned aphasia. But I really don't recall any details, and if they did teach us more, it would just nothing that I grasped at the time. So I would walk into these patient rooms, and what I would normally do for my trainings. I would ask people all these open, ended questions to start with, and then try to narrow down, to figure out what their problems are, and with people with aphasia, especially when they have minimal or no language skills. They couldn't. I was not successful at getting useful information out, and I remember walking out of those patient rooms and just being frustrated with myself that I'm not able to help these people, and the way I can help everyone else, because if I don't know what's going on. you know. How can I? It was really challenging and I really didn't know where to go. I talked to a few other doctors, and there didn't seem to be much in the way of good information about how to move forward. Eventually I met Hillary, and we would have these interesting episodes where I would talk or try to talk with the patients and get minimal, useful information. And Hillary would come back and say, they're having this problem and this concern. And with this medicine change. And how do you do that? How and that kind of started our us on the pathway that we've taken that recognition from my end that there's a lot that can be done. And the yeah.   Jerry Hoepner: Yeah, I love that story, and it's a really good reminder to all of us that sometimes we forget about those conversations, the conversations with physicians, with other providers who might not know as much about aphasia. I'll just tell a really quick story. My wife used to work in intensive care, and of course she had been around me for years, and they would have someone with aphasia, and her colleagues would be like, how do you even communicate with them, and she would be coming up like you, said Steve, with all of this information about the patient, and they're like, where are you getting this information. The person doesn't talk.   Hilary Sample: Yes.   Jerry Hoepner: And that just emphasizes why it's so important for us to have those conversations, so that our all of our colleagues are giving the best care that they can possibly provide.   Hilary Sample: That's a great story. That was very much like almost verbatim of some of the conversations that we initially had like, where is this coming from? They don't talk, or you know they don't have. Maybe they don't have something to say, and that's the assumptions that we make when somebody doesn't use verbal communication. You know, we quickly think that maybe there's not something beneath it, you know. I have a story as well. So what led to a little bit more toward where we are today. sitting in those rooms with people with aphasia and apraxia and people with difficulty communicating. There's 1 that stuck out so much. She was very upset, and that it was. And I we had just really developed a very nice relationship, a very supportive relationship she kind of. She would let me have it if she

    54 min

  7. 06/24/2025

    Episode 129: "Helping myself by helping other people: In Conversation with Cindy "Yee" Lam-Walker"

    In this episode you will: Discover how transitioning from participant to facilitator can accelerate personal recovery while creating meaningful support for others living with aphasia, demonstrating that helping others is often one of the most powerful ways to help yourself continue growing. Learn practical strategies for building and sustaining aphasia support communities both online and in-person, including how to adapt materials for different communication abilities, recruit co-facilitators with complementary strengths, and grow through word-of-mouth rather than formal advertising. Understand how creative activities like movie groups, singing and dancing, and talk of the town (current events) serve as powerful therapy tools for participation and language recovery. Welcome to the Aphasia Access Conversations Podcast. I'm Jerry Hoepner. I'm a professor at the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire and co-facilitator of the Chippewa Valley Aphasia Camp, Blugold Brain Injury Group, Mayo Brain Injury Group, Young Person's Brain Injury Group, and Thursday Night Poets.  I'm also a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration, and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources. I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Cindy "Yee" Lam-Walker. We'll be talking about her programming for individuals with aphasia by individuals with aphasia. This is the second episode in a two-part series featuring remarkable individuals who discovered that one of the most powerful ways to support their own recovery was by creating spaces to help others. We're continuing our June celebration of Aphasia Awareness Month, where we're highlighting the Life Participation Approach to Aphasia by featuring people who are living successfully with aphasia. Earlier this month, we heard from Sherry Lovellette, who started several online opportunities for individuals with aphasia, including Aphasia Gatherings, Online Book Club, sewing, and an in-person support group. We also heard from Dr. Lori Gray about her groundbreaking work integrating mindfulness into stroke recovery. Before we begin today's conversation, I'd like to share a bit about today's guest. Cindy "Yee" Lam Walker is a person with aphasia from Atlanta, Georgia. She was a Treasury Officer before her stroke and was great with numbers and money.   On March 19th, 2019, she experienced a ruptured brain aneurysm. It caused bleeding in her brain, which required brain surgery. After the surgery, she didn't remember what happened for the first 3 months.   She began to speak, but it was difficult. She couldn't walk. She had to use the wheelchair, and she was in the hospital for 5 months. She wouldn't eat. She couldn't go back to her job, a job that she loved but she could no longer do math. Her whole life changed! ​   In winter, she was depressed and didn't want to live. She wanted to die so she could see God and my parents in heaven. In spring, her doctor prescribed some new medications, and she began to feel better. She met her speech therapist, Emily. With her help, she started to talk, to read, and to learn simple math. ​   After her stroke, she didn't care about money anymore. She has many new friends and makes origami to give to people. When she is folding origami, she feels like her mother is teaching me how to fold. ​Now she writes poetry and leads groups for other people with aphasia.     Transcript:   Jerry Hoepner: Well, I'm really excited to have a conversation with you. Katie Strong said that she connected you with you when she was in Atlanta a few weeks ago, and.   Yee Cindy Lam Walker: Yeah, we had a great time.   Jerry Hoepner: Yeah, sounds like it. And she had this idea for a conversation with you about your experience starting an aphasia group for people with aphasia by people with aphasia. And we just think it's a wonderful idea. And I didn't even realize how much you were doing until I saw some of the things that you sent me, and I've heard a little bit here and there from others. But wow! It's really. It's really impressive.   Yee Cindy Lam Walker: The number of people in those classes. Scott did that. I couldn't add up things like he does, so he took care of that I don't even know he was doing it for my classes, but he spent time doing that. But I'm the one who likes to organize it among people and I. I pick some of my other friends to be the host. I'm not always the host for all these classes, so.   Jerry Hoepner: See that. That's really a great idea on your part. People with interest or expertise in those different areas. And yeah, it's quite the lineup of activities that you have kind of across the whole range of interests and topics. So, I'm excited to talk about it. Yeah. Those numbers that Scott put together are really impressive. 2,400 people. Wow.   Yee Cindy Lam Walker: Not at different times, you know, it's not like, yeah. He did the math.   Jerry Hoepner: Yeah, that's a that's a lot of people, though, when you think about how much people struggle to pull people together, those are really great numbers. And obviously you're doing something really well.   Yee Cindy Lam Walker: Yeah, I enjoyed it, I think. You know, right now I don't have a real job. So, I like doing this to help myself and to help other people, too, you know.   Jerry Hoepner: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's as good or as meaningful as any job. The things that you're doing so really excellent work. Well, is it okay? If we kind of start having a conversation about those questions that I sent and try to pull those pieces together.   Yee Cindy Lam Walker: Yes.   Jerry Hoepner: That sounds good. As I said, I'm really interested to learn about your background and kind of your journey through this experience. How has your personal experience with aphasia shaped your approach to community leadership?   Yee Cindy Lam Walker: For me. After my stroke efforts. I was depressed; you know my whole life changed. I didn't really want to live. Really, my parents passed. I figure, you know, if I die, I will see them in heaven with God and my parents. I didn't want to live after the hospital. I was there for 5 months, and I got home. I told Scott that just leave me in the bedroom. Leave it there for one week, then I'll be gone. And he worried about me. So, he kept calling people to help people understand what I'm going through. And shortly after I started to go to an Emory office, where I met my speech therapist. Her name is Emily, and she can tell by she looks at me, and she's like, "Are you depressed right now?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I don't really want to live." And then she said, "Well, you know, you come to my office here. You are aphasia." And I'm like. "Wait what?" And she said, "aphasia. And there are lots of people with aphasia all over the world. It is the inability to read and talk, but we can help you." And when she said that to me I all of a sudden woke up like, "Oh, I can't! I'm not the only person with this, you know." I knew I had stroke, but I never heard of the word aphasia and when she said that she woke me up and I started to read and talk with her. So, And because of that I felt like she helped me. I want to help other people, too you know. I started to start to like my life a little bit and then, after a while, I tell myself you know, your life right now is actually much better than before. You know I care a lot about money and all that stuff. But now I don't care about money anymore. I'm glad that I'm alive and I like to help people because a lot of people helped me when I was going through stroke, and later with my Chemo people there helped me so much that I want to be there to help them. and that makes me feel happy to be able to help others.   Jerry Hoepner: Absolutely that sounds like that. Conversation with Emily was a real turning point for you. Yeah.   Yee Cindy Lam Walker: Yeah, and that.   Jerry Hoepner: Moving forward.   Yee Cindy Lam Walker: I always tell people who are studying to be speech therapists. If I can do it all again. I wouldn't want to be a Treasury officer. I want to be a speech therapist because you get you guys to help so many people. You know, nobody really knows about that until they're going through stroke or other stuff. A regular person wouldn't know what is aphasia, you know.   Jerry Hoepner: Right. You mentioned, as you were describing that journey, the stroke and the aphasia. And then you briefly mentioned your chemo. Can you tell us a little bit about that journey from recovering from the stroke and then finding out about the breast cancer?   Yee Cindy Lam Walker: Yeah. Well, you know After my stroke. I hate going to the hospital, anyway. I've been in the hospital for 5 months but every year we get this mail, saying that oh, it's time for your mammogram. And so, Scott, usually he goes to the mailbox, and he likes going to the mailbox. I don't like to go. I don't really care what I get from the mailbox, but he likes to look through them and he told me. Oh, it's time for you to have mammograms and I'm like, I don't really want to go. And he said, No, I think you know you should do it, and I'm like, no, I said that. You know I hate being in a hospital. I'm so flat over there. There's no way I'll ever get breast cancer. But he kept forcing me and forcing me. And I finally went. And I'm so glad that I went, you know, because I have breast cancer Stage 2. If I didn't go, it could be Stage 3 or Stage 4 so, and it's him kind of forcing me to go. And I always thank him so much for keep forcing me to go. You know, and when I found out I have breast cancer. I never heard of this name called triple negative breast cancer. You know I was kind of surprised that I got this, but I never got angry or anything. The 1st thing I said to mys

    30 min

  8. 06/17/2025

    Episode 128: From Participant to Leader: Community Building in Aphasia Recovery – A Conversation with Sherry Lovellette

    Dr. Katie Strong of Central Michigan University has a vibrant conversation with Sherry Lovellette about how transitioning from participant to facilitator can accelerate personal recovery while creating meaningful support for others living with aphasia. They explore practical strategies for building and sustaining aphasia support communities both online and in-person, including how to adapt materials for different communication abilities and grow through authentic word-of-mouth connections. Sherry also shares how creative activities like quilting and sewing have served as powerful therapy tools for her cognitive rehabilitation and fine motor skills, while providing opportunities to teach others and build additional community connections. This inspiring conversation demonstrates that helping others is often one of the most powerful ways to continue your own recovery journey, embodying the Life Participation Approach to Aphasia by showing how meaningful roles as a leader, teacher, and community builder can flourish alongside ongoing recovery.

    32 min
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4.8
out of 5
22 Ratings

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Aphasia Access Conversations brings you the latest aphasia resources, tips, and a-ha moments from Life Participation professionals who deliver way more than stroke and aphasia facts. Topics include aphasia group treatment ideas, communication access strategies, plus ways to grow awareness and funds for your group aphasia therapy program. ​This podcast is produced by Aphasia Access. Search our courses, resources, and events by keywords at https://bit.ly/aphaccacademy.

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