A loss for words...something we all have experienced. Imagine living each day trying to find the words, understand what is being said, having trouble reading and writing. Welcome to the world of aphasia. This book provides much needed insight into this devastating communication disorder through the eyes of clinicians, caregivers and persons with aphasia. Increase your knowledge of aphasia and learn strategies to increase public awareness of aphasia. Explore innovative approaches to aphasia rehabilitation and groups. Read personal and candid stories of frustration, courage, hope, love and acceptance. Words can escape a person but compassion, respect and humor will always remain.

'TIMELY' David Mitchell 'MOVING ... REMARKABLE' SUNDAY TIMES 'ONE OF THOSE RARE BOOKS I HADN'T REASLISED I'D BEEN WAITING FOR UNTIL I READ IT.' Owen Sheers 'OPEN-MINDED, THOUGHTFUL AND WISE... A LIBERATING BOOK' Colm Toibin In an age of polished TED talks and overconfident political oratory, success seems to depend upon charismatic public speaking. But what if hyper-fluency is not only unachievable but undesirable? Jonty Claypole spent fifteen years of his life in and out of extreme speech therapy. From sessions with child psychologists to lengthy stuttering boot camps and exposure therapies, he tried everything until finally being told the words he'd always feared: 'We can't cure your stutter.' Those words started him on a journey towards not only making peace with his stammer but learning to use it to his advantage. Here, Jonty argues that our obsession with fluency could be hindering, rather than helping, our creativity, authenticity and persuasiveness. Exploring other speech conditions, such as aphasia and Tourette's, and telling the stories of the 'creatively disfluent' - from Lewis Carroll to Kendrick Lamar - Jonty explains why it's time for us to stop making sense, get tongue tied and embrace the life-changing power of inarticulacy.

This book provides a comprehensive yet accessible introduction to aphasia, or loss of language, a complex condition that affects approximately a third of stroke survivors. It describes the varied manifestations of aphasia on speech, comprehension, reading and writing. Chapters explore how aphasia presents across different languages and in bilingualism, as well as the impacts of aphasia on a person’s life and the effects for family members. The text also considers recovery in aphasia and how that recovery can be enhanced by a range of interventions. All topics are informed by extensive research and personal accounts of individuals living with aphasia. Anyone interested in language needs to know about aphasia and will find here the perfect beginner’s guide. The book provides an invaluable introduction to aphasia for students of speech and language therapy, health professionals and others with an interest in stroke care. It also offers easy-to-read answers to many of the questions posed by family members of stroke survivors.

This handbook provides a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of a wide range of developmental and clinical issues in pragmatics. Principally, the contributions to this volume deal with pragmatic competence in a native language, in a second or foreign language, and in a selection of language disorders. The topics which are covered explore questions of production and comprehension on the utterance and discourse level. Topics addressed concern the acquisition and learning, teaching and testing, assessment and treatment of various aspects of pragmatic ability, knowledge and use. These include, for example, the acquisition and development of speech acts, implicatures, irony, story-telling and interactional competence. Phenomena such as pragmatic awareness and pragmatic transfer are also addressed. The disorders considered include clinical conditions pertaining to children and to adults. Specifically, these are, among others, autism spectrum disorders, Down syndrome, and Alzheimer's disease.

This book examines the complexities of clinical social work practice in healthcare today. It identifies many of the psychological, social, emotional and spiritual aspects of physical illness in adults. The approach draws on theories from trauma, crisis intervention and supportive counseling, as well as empirical literature from other healthcare fields. Recognizing that social work roles in healthcare range from short-term or crisis-oriented interventions to ongoing, depth-oriented relationships, the authors develop clinical assessment and intervention useful for social workers in various healthcare settings. By utilizing a common frame of clinical analysis, social workers can deepen their critical thinking skills in examining the impacts of specific illnesses and injuries on coping and wellbeing. Each chapter includes an analysis of the psychosocial impacts of the given medical condition across the following spectrums: illness or injury (by onset, course, outcome, and degree of incapacitation) relationship between nature of illness, and emotional and psychosocial functioning common clinical issues, and impacts of historical and current trauma end-of-life and bereavement social justice the authors’ reflections on practice The Practice of Clinical Social Work in Healthcare is an essential guide for MSW students and social work professionals in healthcare.

From the Introduction: Sudden and unexpected loss of communication is a terrifying, dehumanizing experience that tears away at the essence of life itself. For decades, speech and language pathologists have sought to better understand it. The term aphasia is used to generally describe a condition whereby speech and language skills are partially or totally lost. Aphasia is the result of damage to or disturbance of those areas in the brain responsible for speech and language functions. A tremendous variety of specific impairments can occur to plague the individual with aphasia. Impairments of comprehension, reading disturbances, writing difficulties, and confusion with numerical processes can accompany oral language problems such as word loss, loss of sentence structure, and confusion in utilizing word forms. . . To understand aphasia at this level alone is to miss the full nature of this terribly debilitating condition. For the effect that aphasia has on the person who must bear its consequences is a profound area of interest that is not always understood and. . . seldom considered. Aphasia, My World Alone has been written to help open this often closed door. . . Helen Wulf has put down on paper a depth of feeling, thought, and analysis concerning the aphasic experience that personalizes the disorder in a gripping, readable manner. She delves so deeply into her aphasia that the reader is actually drawn up into the agony and frustration that is the daily burden of the aphasic individual. Speech pathologists who actively work with aphasic patients will immediately recognize the value of Helen Wulf's analysis of her aphasia. Her reactions to various forms of treatment will also be beneficial, especially to those who are allowing certain aphasics to determine which speech and language deficits are most debilitating and, consequently, which area should be emphasized in the initial stages of treatment. Family and friends of the aphasic will be warmly introduced to those inner thoughts so long hidden from their ears. . . This book. . . should be extremely useful in family counseling. . . As many speech pathologists have indicated, the need for "family treatment" is immediate, real, and often of critical importance. . . As the field of aphasia rehabilitation continues its growth ... our ability to help the aphasic and his family will expand. It is felt that in its small way, this book will help make aphasia less of a world alone. A new chapter has been added to this revised edition in which Helen Wulf assesses her feelings and the progress she has made six to eight years post-stroke.

Originally published in 1926, this book forms part of a two-volume work by Sir Henry Head on the subject of aphasia. The work was written in an attempt to analyse and integrate the physical and psychological aspects of the condition, incorporating them both into a general theory regarding linguistic expression. Illustrative figures are included.