The Aphasia Corner

A new, nationwide effort to educate the public about communication disorders was recently launched by the national American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). The campaign, called Identify the Signs, aims to help people recognize the early warning signs of communication disorders. This topic couldn’t be timelier—or more important.

Have you ever been forced to choose between working with a client on speech-therapy exercises or begin an evaluation for a speech-generating device (SGD)? For many speech-language pathologists (SLPs) insurance caps and a limited number of in-person sessions are making this scenario more common.

A patient diagnosed with aphasia often faces several speech-language pathologists, multiple facilities, and various insurance plans with separate therapy requirements. These requirements can be as varied as the disciplines they encounter along their care continuum, which can span many years and adhere to multiple plans-of-care. Herein lies today’s challenge for SLPs that work with people with aphasia: How do we maximize the therapeutic benefit for our patients when managing a complex population that requires the involvement of multiple clinicians in an ever-changing healthcare system?