Dr. Kenya Taylor
Mortar Board adviser, 308.865.8843
Speech-language pathologists in the University of Nebraska at Kearney Communication Disorders Department are providing aphasia rehabilitation group therapy throughout the semester.
Individuals are seen twice during the week for individual therapy and a round-table group therapy session is held Friday mornings at 10 a.m. During the round-table session spouses and family members attend to observe, learn and socialize.
Currently five to eight individuals from Kearney and neighboring communities are involved with the aphasia rehabilitation group therapy. “The group members have exhausted their medicare cap for services at the hospital and UNK is the last hope, unless they pay the high price to someone in private practice,” said Dr. Kenya Taylor, Associate Professor of Communication Disorders. Therapy is fee-based and continues through the spring semester.
Aphasia is a sudden and lasting impairment of specific language abilities caused by brain damage received from strokes. “For some, aphasia primarily interferes with the person’s free access to their own vocabulary when trying to speak or write words or sentences,” Laurence Hilton, Professor of Communication Disorders, said.
Other symptoms of aphasia are off-target words quickly said that mislead those listening and disruption of the ability for stroke survivor’s to read and clearly understand the speech of others.
All prospective participants in the aphasia rehabilitation group therapy must be medically stable. Individual communication needs and abilities will be evaluated under the supervision of UNK faculty before being considered a candidate for participation. Therapy is provided by UNK speech-language pathology graduate student clinicians under close faculty supervision.
More information is available by calling the UNK College of Education Clinic secretary at (308) 865-8300.
