Assessing the Amount of Spontaneous Real-World Spoken Language in Aphasia: Validation of Two Methods

The purpose of this article is to present the results of a study evaluating the psychometric properties of 2 new measures that exclusively assess the amount of real-world spoken language in patients with aphasia.

Forty individuals with aphasia were evaluated on several measures of spoken language in real-world settings. The Verbal Activity Log (VAL; Johnson et al., 2014) has participants, aided by caregivers, indicate current amount and quality of real-world spoken language compared with before stroke. In addition, digital voice recorders objectively measured the amount of real-world spoken language. The Communicative Effectiveness Index (Lomas et al., 1989), a previously validated measure of functional communication, was used as a comparison measure. Nineteen participants received follow-up assessment ≥ 3 weeks later.

Validity was supported by Pearson correlations between spoken language recordings and the VAL, r(38) = .70, p < .001. Likewise, correlation with the Communicative Effectiveness Index was strong, r(38) = .73, p < .001. Test-retest reliability for both VAL and audio recording was high, with intraclass correlations ≥ .96 and .90, respectively.

These results present preliminary evidence for the reliability and validity of the VAL and spoken language recording for assessment of the amount of real-world spoken language in aphasia. As a simple patient-reported outcome, the VAL may assist diverse therapies for aphasia.