Elayna Dyke

In fall 2016, I started conducting research with Dr. H. Sheen Chiou and some of my undergraduate peers. Three others girls and myself had similar interests in what we wanted to study in the realm of aphasia therapy and outcome measures. After much deliberation, we decided to study communicative strategies in people with aphasia, how they differ before and after aphasia, how often they are used, and how useful they are in communication. We are hoping that our research will help others understand communicative patterns in people with aphasia, which will help therapists in providing therapy and people around the person with aphasia with communication.

 

For the first semester, we read a variety of research articles in order to develop research questions and inform ourselves on current research in aphasia. After splitting into groups based on mutual interests and research questions, three different groups worked on writing literature reviews, which called upon my information literacy and information synthesis skills. As we refined our research questions, we thought about what would be the most useful to research and what would help fill gaps in the research that we read and synthesized. It was a slow process, but it was rewarding to have a final set of questions that we were proud of. Our research mentor, Dr. H. Sheen Chiou, was both challenging and supportive of our research ventures.

 

This semester, we started looking at data that was collected from the Twin Cities Aphasia Group by the graduate students. We were busy submitting abstracts and learning objectives. We formatted an easy-to-read putting poster for our presentations. We have been connecting out literature review to our data, and we are connected what our research means to our own experiences with our clients in our clinical practicum. I could use the information that we had found in our research and literature review with my client and in my class assignments. Our final project was called “Communication Strategies of People with Aphasia.” For these tasks, we had to use multiple critical thinking skills, and there were many trial-and-error moments, as well as moments when there were disagreements within my team that put us beside ourselves.

 

On April 7th, my peers and I presented at the Minnesota Speech-Language Hearing Association (MSHA) Conference. We presented to people who have knowledge of aphasia and communication disorders. For this presentation, will used language that was specific to our discipline to explain our research. I expected to just present, and have people read the poster and leave. I was pleasantly surprised by how people asked us questions and had discussions with us. Speech-language pathologists and graduate students came up to use and told us about their personal experiences with people with aphasia and how they communicate. Another person gave us suggestions on how to make our research stronger, which was very helpful. I enjoyed talking about how the research was significant to me, and I learned so much from the people who came to discuss and listen. I would love to inspire a professional who works with aphasia patients to communicate differently, and I hope to continue research in my field in the future.

 

On April 11th, my peers and I presented at the Undergraduate Research Symposium (URS). This time, we presented our research to people who did not have a background in aphasia or communication disorders. We had to essentially practice a different presentation as well as use different language to convey what we accomplished through research. For example, we had to explain the different assessments in our research, an example of the strategies that people with aphasia used, what “life participation” was, and what aphasia was and what it entailed. We had many meaningful interactions with people who had heard or read about aphasia in different contexts. We were asked many questions that we had not considered as people in communication disorders. I hope that someone at the URS will be able to use the new knowledge of how people with aphasia communicate to make someone’s life better. I hope that I could perhaps inspire research that will extend what we studied.