Computerized Platform in Hindi Language: Exploring Its Use in Aphasia Screening

Aphasia is a frequent sequela of stroke, affecting approximately 25%-40% of stroke survivors due to focal damage to language-related brain regions. In resource-constrained settings like India, timely screening is limited by the cost of neuroimaging and the time-intensive nature of conventional pen-and-paper assessments. This study presents a Computerized Hindi Aphasia Screening Platform offering various tasks (CHASP), a computer-based multimodal screening platform designed to objectively differentiate aphasic and non-aphasic post-stroke individuals from healthy controls.

CHASP integrates Acoustic, and Visual and Reading tasks with a sensor-enabled base station for response-time quantification and a physiology-based module for acquiring photoplethysmography-derived interbeat interval (IBI) as a biomarker of cognitive processing. Post-stroke participants were independently assessed using the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB), the gold-standard clinical tool. Performance scores from CHASP and relevant sections of WAB were compared for exploring clinical relevance.

The CHASP task modules reliably differentiated post-stroke participants from healthy controls across performance scores, response times, and IBI. The Acoustic tasks could distinguish the aphasic and non-aphasic groups, particularly through task scores and IBI measures. Strong correlations were observed between CHASP performance scores and corresponding WAB scores, supporting the clinical validity of the proposed platform.