Using Teaching of Talking Method in Stroke Patients with Aphasia

Question 1 

The educator engages in some activities which help him to connect with the group of stroke-survivor patients and the family caregivers by creating a good rapport. Firstly, he introduced himself to the group. In his introduction, he states his credentials and his wealth of experience. The educator, Mark Ittleman, is a speech-language pathologist with a wealth of experience spanning about twenty years. His act of stating his credentials and particularly having assisted stroke-survivor patients with aphasia helps him to connect with the group. It captures the group’s attention and makes them deem him as the most appropriate person to educate them. Secondly, his act of taking a seat and moving closer to the audience helps break the ice and forms a serene and warm atmosphere in which he engages the audience. 

Question 2 

The educator’s decision to narrate to the audience his childhood struggles of learning to tie shoelaces helped to form a common ground in which he would connect with the group. The stroke-survivor patients have their struggles of relearning speech. The narration also emphasized the importance of structured and understandable instructions in helping persons learn how to undertake certain activities. The educator also states his experience of having worked with stroke-survivor patients with aphasia. This statement helps declare his relevance as a good therapist and helps him to connect with the audience. 

Question 3 

The educator uses some non-verbal approaches to help relay some information and connect with the audience. Mark uses direct eye contact as he converses with individual stroke-survivor patients and family caregivers such as Will and Doris. The direct eye contact helps to create an atmosphere of trust in which the audience speaks freely. Hand movement is the other non-verbal approach that is used in the presentation. Mark constantly moves his hands in harmony with the words that he is articulating. An example is when he is demonstrating how to tie shoelaces. He also uses hand movement to guide Doris to utter various statements such as, “He is my husband.” 

Question 4 

Mark is decently dressed, which helps him to cut a professional and formal appearance. He is dressed in a button-down shirt and a decent pair of trousers. The professional appearance makes the audience take his lecture seriously, and their attentiveness exhibits this engrossment. Mark effectively uses his voice to deliver his presentation. He has adopted a slow pace for his voice to make it easy for the stroke survivor patients to follow through. As he guides Will to speak, he adopts a slower but louder voice, which makes it easier for Will to repeat the statement, “Good morning.” 

Question 5 

The educator uses the space and physical positioning to make it easier to converse with the members of the group. He keeps on narrowing the space between him and the individual he is speaking with by moving closer to them. The reduction of space between him and the respondent helps to increase the concentration of the respondents since the respondents get to learn that all the attention is being directed to them. He moves around the presentation area as he converses with the respondents, which helps him to position himself in a way that he can create direct eye contact with the particular respondent. The use of direct eye contact creates a bond of trust in which the respondents freely respond to his utterances. 

Question 6 

The educator effectively uses humor to capture the attention of the respondents. In one incident, he cracks the group into laughter when he prods Doris whether her husband is handsome. Besides helping capture Doris’ attention, the humor helped to ease the tense environment and makes Doris more willing to respond to his instructions and guidelines. In another incident, the educator humorous states that he can find anything about Will’s wife. Mark used this statement to help break the ice after having asked Will if the wife is nice. 

Question 7 

Throughout the session, the educator uses very simple words to guide speech learning. The instructor chooses simple words to help stroke -survivor patients with aphasia relearn their speech. The words used include “good morning,” “she is nice,” “I am a dentist,” etc. In his initial instruction with a patient, he uses few words and goes on increasing the word count as the patient becomes better in uttering them. The use of simple words is in correspondence with his introductory statement that speech learning should be made as simple as possible. The technique proves to be effective since the patients get to learn pretty fast. 

Question 8 

The educator uses positive reinforcement to encourage the patients to get better in their speech learning. According to Ackerman (2020), positive reinforcement may be undertaken through statements as simple as “good work.” The educator effectively uses verbal praise to encourage the patients to improve their speech learning. He uses comments such as “Good” and “very good” when Will and Doris successful utter the instructed statements. The verbal praise proves to be effective since the patients increase the words that they utter in subsequent trials. Initially, Will could only pronounce a single word, but he improves to two after the verbal praise. 

Question 9 

Effective teaching calls for the use of various teaching materials. Teaching materials are essential in the organization of the teaching content, which aids in enhanced comprehension amongst learners. The educator did not use PowerPoint in his lesson. However, the educator utilized the whiteboard to organize his presentation. When the educator mentions of the first topic to be addressed, rapport, he looks to the whiteboard. This encounter indicates that the educator has already listed the topics to be covered on the whiteboard before beginning the session. The use of the whiteboard prepares learners on the content that they are to cover and ensures that the educator does not leave out any item. 

Question 10 

I was faced with lots of feelings after watching the video. Notable of these feelings is empathy. I felt empathetic to the needs of stroke-survivor patients with aphasia and the struggles that family caregivers go through. It is never easy relearning speaking, especially when you are an adult. A lot of tolerance and understanding is needed from the caregivers to ensure that speech learning is successful. I also felt encouraged by Mark’s approach to therapy. He makes it quite easy, fun, and encourages the patients to do better. After watching the video, I feel more encouraged to use my background in healthcare and nursing to impact the lives of patients positively. 

Question 11 

A lot of lessons that are applicable in teaching plans and scripts were derived from the video. One of the lessons is that time allotment in a teaching plan is very important. Mark is very effective in managing the time allocated to the various components of the teaching plan. He welcomes the group, gives a background of the topics, and finally delves into the content of the day. During the presentation, he engages the group through addressing the unique needs of the patients and posing questions. All these items are addressed in the presentation, which is about 30 minutes long. Another key lesson from the video is that identifying the key teaching points is essential in teaching scripts. It ensures that the identified issues are comprehensively addressed. Mark identifies two main topics for his lesson, rapport, and stimulability. 

Reference

Ackerman, C. (2020).  Positive Reinforcement in Psychology (Definition + 5 Examples) . PositivePsychology.com. Retrieved 17 July 2020, from https://positivepsychology.com/positive-reinforcement-psychology/ .