5017V - A Person-Centered Approach to Measuring Communicative Success Across Domains, Modalities, and Settings

Adaptable person-centered assessments that serve to lay the foundations for intervention and life post-diagnosis are essential for the care of individuals with acquired neurogenic communication disorders. We describe an approach to characterizing and monitoring communicative abilities that is adaptable for both chronic and progressive disorders in the context of communication practices of the 21st century. Our efforts have culminated in the development of a novel clinical instrument: the Communication Success Screener (COMSS). Inspired by the principles of the Life Participation Approach to Aphasia, this screening tool provides practitioners with a structured approach to collect client-driven characterizations of functional communication needs to then best formulate and address person-centered goals for intervention.