Treating Attention to Improve Auditory Comprehension in Aphasia

most effective interaction with partner T and her least effective interaction with partner L appears to be differences in the nonaphasic partners’ interaction style. L tended to produce contentless back-channel ‘‘mhm’s’’ instead of utilizing her turns to produce understanding checks; then, when she did produce a check it contained a large number of content units. T, on the other hand, produced understanding checks on a higher percentage of her turns and each check contained much less information. Thus, the aphasic partner invites initiation of understanding checks by establishing eye contact but the nonaphasic partner must be attentive, receptive, and socially willing to initiate them despite the fact that they slow down the interaction and, worse, openly acknowledge that there may have been difficulty in understanding the aphasic partner.