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Using Talking Mats to support communication in persons with Huntington's Disease
Author(s) -
Ferm Ulrika,
Sahlin Anna,
Sundin Linda,
Hartelius Lena
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
international journal of language and communication disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.101
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1460-6984
pISSN - 1368-2822
DOI - 10.3109/13682820903222809
Subject(s) - conversation , psychology , huntington's disease , disease , augmentative and alternative communication , cognition , conversation analysis , population , nonverbal communication , augmentative , developmental psychology , resource (disambiguation) , cognitive psychology , communication , linguistics , medicine , psychiatry , computer network , philosophy , environmental health , pathology , computer science
Background : Many individuals with Huntington's disease experience reduced functioning in cognition, language and communication. Talking Mats is a visually based low technological augmentative communication framework that supports communication in people with different cognitive and communicative disabilities. Aims : To evaluate Talking Mats as a communication tool for people in the later stages of Huntington's disease. Methods & Procedures : Five individuals with Huntington's disease participated in the study. Three conditions were compared: unstructured communication, verbally structured communication, and communication using Talking Mats. The conversations were videotaped and analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Outcomes & Results : Talking Mats increased communicative effectiveness for all participants. Verbally structured conversation resulted in higher effectiveness than the unstructured counterpart and effectiveness differed depending on the type of conversational topic. Conclusions & Implications : Talking Mats could be a valuable resource for people with Huntington's disease and their conversation partners. It could be used for social purposes, for understanding a person's opinions and for making decisions. Additional research is necessary in order to generalize the results to the population of individuals with Huntington's disease and to understand better the mechanisms behind the positive effects observed.