ABSTRACT

Background

Improvement in daily life activities such as conversation has been prioritized by people with aphasia, which has led to an increased interest in developing and evaluating therapies that target conversation abilities. However, many questions remain about reliable and valid procedures for examining outcomes related to conversation. In this paper, we detail a procedure for quantifying conversational behaviours to improve the protocol described in previous interaction-focused studies and report preliminary data on the effects of a conversation-based intervention using the refined protocol.

Methods & Procedures

To address the first aim, the authors reviewed procedures developed for previous interaction-focused interventions and included additional practices in the procedure to increase experimental control, ensure similarity across samples, and capture reliability data. To address the second aim, a multiple baseline single case experimental design was employed to examine potential treatment effects associated with a conversation-based intervention across two participants with aphasia.

Outcomes & Results

Krippendorff’s alpha statistics revealed inter-rater reliability scores ranging from 0.81 to 0.98 for identifying conversation-based outcomes. Visual inspection and statistical analysis of intervention data revealed improvement in frequency of conversation strategy usage over baseline levels and medium to large treatment effects for two of the three strategies targeted in both participants.

Conclusions

Results of this study, coupled with findings from previous studies of conversation intervention, add to the growing body of literature which highlights the possible efficacy of interaction-focused intervention and the therapeutic value of natural contexts such as conversation. Developing effective, conversation-based therapies will help to bring treatment practices into closer alignment with client values which tend to emphasize conversational abilities as therapeutic targets.

中文翻译：

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检测对话中的行为变化：程序和初步数据

摘要

背景

失语症患者优先考虑改善日常生活活动，例如对话，这导致对开发和评估针对对话能力的疗法越来越感兴趣。然而，关于检查对话相关结果的可靠和有效程序仍然存在许多问题。在本文中，我们详细介绍了量化对话行为以改进先前以交互为重点的研究中描述的协议的程序，并报告了使用改进协议的基于对话的干预效果的初步数据。

方法和程序

为了解决第一个目标，作者回顾了为以前以交互为中心的干预措施开发的程序，并在程序中加入了额外的实践，以增加实验控制、确保样本之间的相似性并捕获可靠性数据。为了解决第二个目标，采用多基线单案例实验设计来检查与基于对话的干预对两名失语症参与者相关的潜在治疗效果。

结果和结果

Krippendorff 的 alpha 统计数据显示，用于识别基于对话的结果的评分者间可靠性得分从 0.81 到 0.98 不等。对干预数据的目视检查和统计分析显示，针对两个参与者的三种策略中的两种，对话策略的使用频率高于基线水平，以及中到大的治疗效果。

结论

这项研究的结果，加上先前对话干预研究的结果，增加了越来越多的文献，这些文献强调了以互动为中心的干预的可能功效以及对话等自然环境的治疗价值。开发有效的、基于对话的疗法将有助于使治疗实践与客户价值观更紧密地结合，这些价值观往往强调将对话能力作为治疗目标。