Author(s): Macall Walker, Allred Sam, Merrill Stephanie, Olivia Blacker
Mentor(s): Tyson Harmon
Institution BYU
Background Current research helps many people, but sometimes this research is inaccessible to people with aphasia (i.e., an acquired language disorder post-stroke). Aphasia affects a person’s ability to understand and/or produce language. Communication impairment can be considered a legitimate barrier, which, unfortunately, may lead to people with aphasia being marginalized (Gill & Cruice, 2017). Additionally, aphasia research is published in international, peer-reviewed journals in a format that is inaccessible to people with aphasia (Finch et al., 2023). This inspires the question of whether research results that are particularly meaningful to people with aphasia are accessible to the population they are meant to benefit. Jasen et al. (2015) found in one study that patients who understand information of a study will better adhere to recommendations from the results. Furthermore, Hinckley et al. (2007) suggest that other studies have found individuals with aphasia view aphasia resources as “somewhat difficult to find” and acknowledge that there is a general lack of public awareness toward aphasia. To increase this awareness and better serve the aphasia community, there is a need for more aphasia-friendly research articles. The present study investigates the success of getting an aphasia-friendly resource into the hands of people with aphasia. Methods Four undergraduate research assistants collaboratively created an aphasia-friendly version of a recently submitted research article. During this time before the article was posted, data regarding overall page views was collected using Google Analytics over a 30-day period. After adding the resource, efforts will be made to promote this information via word-of-mouth, Facebook groups, email, etc. Then, data from that 30-day period will be recorded (including additional measurements for page views of the aphasia-friendly resource) and compared with the previous measurements. Anticipated Results We anticipate that the number of views will increase after spreading awareness of the resource. People with aphasia acknowledge that research articles are difficult to read (Hinckley et al., 2013). Thus, we expect that as we make these resources more available, the website page views will increase as more people with aphasia access the information.