Using narrative as a bridge: linking language processing models with real-life communication

In chronic aphasia, maximizing generalization of improved language abilities from clinical tasks to everyday communication can require the same systematic planning process as the early stages of therapy, often drawing on additional areas of knowledge and successes from other clinical populations. The use of narrative structure is shown here to be a useful framework for building on the developments within sentence processing impairments in aphasia and creating a bridge to more real-life language tasks. An intervention based on narrative structure is described with two people with different language profiles and at different stages of the chronic aphasia spectrum. The insights gained in assessing language ability, underpinning intervention, and capturing therapeutic changes are demonstrated.