“Provide a Meaningful Experience and People Will Want to Talk About It” Michael Franklan director of the Community Arts Studio Naropa University Bette L. Hadler M.A.CCC - Supervisor, Neuro-genic Clinical Studies University of Colorado Boulder, Speech Language and Hearing Center Background Information: For the past 6 years the Speech, Language and Hearing Center of the University of Colorado at Boulder, has held a “Conversation Group” for adults with Aphasia and related neuro-cognitive difficulty. This program offered people with head injuries, stroke and other neuro-genic communication problems an opportunity to share common experiences that generate attention, perception, memory, planning interaction and communication. The purpose of this program is to provide meaningful experiences in the arts and communication sciences to support and enrich client’s cognitive and communication skills. Caregivers are encouraged to participate in the programs designed to provide them with support, insight and opportunities to explore their creative sides as well. Program Content: The programs that participants explore include: • Writer’s Workshop • Personal Theater • Community Art Studio • Music Therapy • Movement Therapy • Book Club • Culinary Arts Future Plans: Our plan for the Summer of 2003 is to offer a two week residential Summer Institute. This demonstration program will reflect the successful efforts to date but will include the additional factor of an intensive experience and the development of community in a residential setting. We will expand this program to people from all over the United States and provide on-campus residential accommodations for clients and their care-givers. Working with the arts, whether it be through theater, writing poetry, music or visual arts, is a dynamic way of communicating and inspires greater understanding and appreciation of one’s own ability and greater participation in the world. The Music Therapy Group was designed to explore multi-modal cognitive processing skills, through attention to and the perception of rhythmic and melodic patterns. Pattern recognition, inhibition and initiation, dialoguing without words, memory and affect are all addressed. Participants develop novel insights, and increase their mental agility in response to the challenging yet playful exercises. Decision making in real time within the improvisation exercises as well as the ability to abstract a concept musically, enhances their performance in other areas of performance as well. Often motor retraining is strengthened by the use of rhythmic approaches. When brain injury limits the usage of conventional linguistic elements, music can also enhance communication. The Writer’s Workshops were distinguished, in that they were not remedial but creative. At no time do our clients feel they must plough through tedious exercises, the equivalent of jumping jacks or push-ups. Instead each writer is encouraged “to write in recollection and amazement for yourself.”(Jack Kerouac). Group members continually say that these sessions are the best part of their life, not so much because the rest of their lives are so isolated or bleak, but because the opportunity to share one’s creative life within a community is a rare opportunity for anyone. Collaborative Efforts: This program is conducted as a collaborative project with numerous organizations including but not limited to: The University of Colorado at Boulder, The Speech Language and Hearing Center at The University of Colorado Boulder, Naropa University, The Cooking School of the Rockies. Facilitators and Consultants: • Bette Hadler,Speech and Language Pathology Supervisor with an emphasis in Neuro-Cognitive and Neurolinguistic Disorders, from the Speech Language and Hearing Sciences Masters Program at the University of Colorado. • M.A. students from this program act as student facilitators. • Michael Franklan, Director of the Community Art Studio at Naropa University • Graduate students from the Art Therapy Training Program • Linda Halloway, Music Therapist, associated with the Denver Rainbow Bridge Program • Movement Therapist from the Department of Movement and Dance at the Naropa University • Sondra Bennett, a nationally known Drama Coach and originator of Personal Theater • The staff of the Cooking School of the Rockies. • Bill Scheffel Creative Writing Workshops Program Evaluation and Research Design: Client’s and care-givers’ responses to their experience are evaluated qualitatively. This has been based upon observer’s ratings on a 7 point scale as well as a profile of performance on such skills from ability to initiate to conversational repair. In addition a Quality of Life Survey is generated according to values the client or care-givers hold highly. Such self-ratings are gathered before and after their experience. In addition to this data, the client’s work is often the outcome that validates the experience gained in the program. Gleem Diamonds Flash Reflecting Me The Body, Remembering Me The Mind Reinventing Me The Spirit. Matthew Uilk, Writer’s Workshop, two months before his death. January 30,2002 Background artwork by John Mizoue