Original Work

Dates: December 2, December 11, December 13, December 28

Objective: The objective of my original work is to understand the similarities and
differences in the therapy sessions of traumatic brain injury patients and developing
verbal autistic children.
Materials: Cut out pictures of basic objects and larger pictures of scenes.
Description of Process: First I used my research assessments and the information I
collected on interviews with professionals in order to come up with my thirty minute
very basic therapy session. In order to achieve my objective I decided to make my
therapy session a visual based game where the patient practices their word
recognition through images. Once I figured out exactly what I wanted to do with the
therapy session I then had to find the pictures and print them out to be ready for an
actual session. After that I then reached out to professionals to hear their input.
Once the planning process was over I was ready to go and use this session and
collect my results. Although in my proposal I had planned to do five patients from
each speech group, I came to the conclusion that doing two each was more
reasonable and gave more specific conclusions.
Utilization of Higher-Level Thinking Skills: I had to evaluate these two different
deficits to provide a well thought out and researched treatment session that would
accommodate both groups of people while proving my purpose of these two groups
of people being very similar in different aspects.
Results: In the therapy sessions I found that the autistic children either knew the
word immediately or needed help, hints, or encouragement in order to finally sound
out the words of the pictures being shown on the cards. On the other hand the TBI
(traumatic brain injury) patients may not have known the words right away but
didn't always need help in order to eventually think of the word that they were
comprehending but could not express.
Conclusions/Interpretations: Although these two groups of speech patients may be
very similar in certain aspects they still varies in the majority of ways that are
evident through the speech sessions. The children needed to be taught the words
rather than the actual expression of the word that they are already thinking but
can't say, just like the the TBI patients.

Application/Meaning: In undergoing this experience I can now say I have better

knowledge on both of these speech patients and that in the future I will know to
really study the behavior of patients in order to predict more accurate outcomes of
treatments since every patient is unique.

Treatment Plan:
Beginning of session, approximately
five minutes:

During these ten minutes the

session could begin by a matching
game where three pictures will be
laid out and three words will also be
laid out at a time and the patient will
be encouraged to match the word
with the picture being shown. I
would do two sets of three.

Middle of session, approximately ten

minutes:

Using only the object cards, have

the patient place the pictures into
three groups any way they want.
Once they have completed their
groups have them explain why they
chose to place those images
together. Have them do this again
but in different groupings,
encourage them to be as creative as
they want, the point of this exercise
is to have them recognize the
images and being able to verbally
express why they grouped the
pictures together.

End of session, approximately 15

minutes:

While wrapping up the speech

therapy session have them look over
one scenic picture at a time and
have them verbally describe what
they see in the image. This can
range anywhere from the objects in
the picture, the colors present, to
the actions being done in the image.

Therapy Sessions:

Patient

Matching Words

Grouping
Pictures

Scenic Images

Patient #1

Quickly matched
the words and had
no problems at
attempting to say
the words of the
objects before
matching the word
to it.

Finding unique
ways to group the
images was very
easy for them. I
could understand
the message they
were trying to tell
but had a harder
time at verbally
describing why
they grouped the
images that they
did.

Used one word

statements to
describe certain
things that were in
the image. Some
specific things
they noticed were
objects rather than
colors or actions.

Patient #2

Had a harder time

at word
recognition and
needed help with
verbally saying the
words.

They had an easier

time doing this
activity compared
to the matching
words. They
groups the images
easily and did
better at
expressing their
reasons than the
first game.

This game was

much more
difficult for them
than the grouping
activity. They
needed to be
taught the words
rather than
needing help
expressing them.
Mainly naming

colors.

Patient #3

Very good at
matching words
visually but had
difficulty when it
came to verbally
expressing the
images.

Visually grouped
the images in a
very logical way
rather than the
autistic kids who
used creative
reasoning. They
had trouble
forming sentences
to express the
groups.

This was evidently

the hardest
activity for them
and they got
frustrated when
they couldnt
express exactly
what they were
thinking.

Patient #4

Took longer to
match the words
but they
understand the
images very
quickly. This
individual had
more problems
with word
recognition.

Did very well at

grouping and also
did well at
describing their
groups.

They were very

good at describing
the images but
also had minor
difficulties in
finding the exact
words to match
certain objects,
which ties back to
word recognition.

Patient Data:
Patient

Age

Speech Reason

Patient #1

Autism (Verbal)

Patient #2

Autism (Verbal)

Patient #3

37

TBI

Patient #4

48

TBI

Conclusion:
By doing these speech therapy sessions I was able to
come to the conclusion that while the two groups of
people have many similarities and the same treatment
plan could easily be used for both of their sessions, I also
found that the results of those treatment plans would be
noticeably different due to the background of the two
speech patients. For example, the autistic children are
younger and were born with their speech issues, whereas
the TBI patients were older and usually lived a normal live
with regular speech up until the point where they got
their traumatic brain injury. Due to these different
background, the results of the therapy session were
pretty different when studied. The autistic kids are still in
their developmental years so they are still learning words
whereas the adult TBI patients already know the words
but have trouble expressing that verbally due to their
brain injury.

Original Work
Speech Language
Pathology

Lindsey Carriker
Independent Study and
Mentorship
2016-17

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erry

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