Improving Electronic Written Communication in Aphasia

People with aphasia have difficulty with writing and often struggle to use electronic communication that connects people to one another. The goal of this project is to evaluate the extent to which a novel treatment (T-WRITE) improves written language function and the use of text messaging; we also evaluate whether there are subsequent positive effects on the participant's social connectedness and ultimately health-related quality of life (HRQOL). T-WRITE involves choral reading and repeated writing of sentences via texting. Participants work intensively and independently at home on a laptop computer. A virtual therapist directs the participant to practice copying and independently writing phrases and short sentences using the typing feature on a cellular phone. The specific objective of this randomized clinical trial is to compare T-WRITE to ORLA+WTG, a similar treatment that targets written expression using handwriting.