12 (Lynne Mortensen).pmd

Language impairment is a commonly occurring consequence of brain impairment following left cerebral hemisphere stroke and traumatic brain injury. While some recovery usually occurs, persistent communication impairment interferes significantly with a person’s social functioning. Language rehabilitation aims to restore optimum functional communication by enabling a person to recover impaired language skills, and importantly, to utilize remaining language resources. The SystemicFunctional model of language, being concerned with how language is used and language as potential resource, is a highly relevant framework for language rehabilitation. This paper describes how Systemic-Functional-Linguistic theory is currently being applied to the description and interpretation of acquired communication impairment in adults.