British Aphasiology Society Therapy Symposium 14th September 2017 The verification interview technique (VIT): Enabling the evaluation of the impact of language therapy on the quality of life of a person with severe aphasia. Morag Bixley, Nicky Luby, Iain Williamson, Lixian Jin and Mark Scase

The verification interview technique (VIT): Measuring therapy outcomes for people with aphasia is not a straightforward proposition:

The verification interview technique (VIT): Some outcome measures are subject specific They can identify small changes in language function However it is hard to make them meaningful to carers, the MDT and purchasers

The verification interview technique (VIT): Scaled outcome measures are standardised and some are psychometrically valid But they may be too to broad to identify small changes in language function resulting from therapy

The verification interview technique (VIT): MDT measures are also psychometrically valid Despite their multidimensional measurement they too may be too broad to register the changes brought about by successful aphasia therapy

The verification interview technique (VIT): Measuring the outcome of aphasia therapy for people with severe aphasia: It is difficult to measure the outcome of intervention for people with severe aphasia Many published measures use language that is inaccessible to people with severe aphasia Outcome research often excludes people with severe on the basis of their inability to access measurement tools This means that people with severe aphasia are not given the opportunity to evaluate their experience of therapy A pre requisite of authentic QOL measurement is that the impact of aphasia is evaluated by the PWA

The verification interview technique (VIT): This single therapy study was designed to address this challenge Part of a Phd study Single case taken from phase two of a two phase therapy trial Mixed methods study – this presentation focusses on the data derived from the interview part of the study SATwith© and SATwithout© word finding therapy analysis and linguistic interview analyses are ongoing

The verification interview technique (VIT): Aim: To explore the use of aphasia therapy experience as an outcome measure. Objective: To analyse and compare the experience of SATwith© and SATwithout© therapy.

The verification interview technique (VIT): Method: The participant and her husband were taking part in a larger clinical trial of ten therapy studies Nicky had been randomly allocated to one of two therapy pathways

The verification interview technique (VIT): Method: At the beginning of the trial: Nicky had difficulty finding words and creating sentences. She had difficulty writing single words. She used gesture to convey some meanings. She had some difficulty understanding single words, was unsuccessful on TROG2. She had some difficult reading single words but could understand some icons.

The verification interview technique (VIT): Interview protocol: Both Nicky and her partner were video taped and asked the same non directive interview questions: Carl was interviewed first and the interview was then transcribed and analysed for content. This information was then collated and presented within the corresponding interview questions for presentation to Nicky verify or reject.

The verification interview technique (VIT): Results: There were three types of interview responses: spontaneous, agreement with a proposition, negation of a proposition Nicky was able to confirm and disagree with Carl’s thoughts about the SLT she had received She could also describe her thoughts about speech and language therapy spontaneously

The verification interview technique (VIT): Moving forward: Two more VIT single case studies to transcribe and analyse Linguistic analysis of interviews – a very cursory analysis suggests that SATwith© and SATwithout© word finding therapy has a beneficial effect on multimodality communication, general word finding skills, sentence construction and the ability to convey abstract information

The verification interview technique (VIT): Moving forward: There is the possibility that before and after VIT could be used as a single clinical outcome tool that can measure the impact of word finding therapy on both linguistic competency and quality of life of the PWA irrespective of the severity of their aphasia. It is hoped that further content analysis of the other interviews elicited in this study (40) might identify a core set of concepts that therapists could use to analyse interviews in real time through content/semantic theoretical analysis of their client’s interview data

British Aphasiology Society Therapy Symposium 14th September 2017 The verification interview technique (VIT): Enabling the evaluation of the impact of language therapy on the quality of life of a person with severe aphasia. Morag Bixley, Nicky Luby, Iain Williamson, Lixian Jin and Mark Scase