Episode 132: Group Treatment with Dr. Liz Hoover

Lyssa Rome is a speech-language pathologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is on staff at the Aphasia Center of California, where she facilitates groups for people with aphasia and their care partners. She owns an LPAA-focused private practice and specializes in working with people with neurogenic communication disorders. She has worked in acute hospital, skilled nursing, and continuum of care settings. Prior to becoming an SLP, Lyssa was a public radio journalist, editor, and podcast producer.

In this episode, Lyssa Rome interviews Liz Hoover about group treatment for aphasia.

 

Guest info

Dr. Liz Hoover is a clinical professor of speech language and hearing sciences and the clinical director of the Aphasia Resource Center at Boston University. She holds board certification from the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences, or ANCDS, and is an ASHA fellow. She was selected as a 2024 Tavistock Trust for Aphasia Distinguished Scholar, USA and Canada. Liz was a founding member of Aphasia Access and served on the board for several years. She has 30 years of experience working with people with aphasia and other communication disorders across the continuum of care. She's contributed to numerous presentations and publications, and most of her work focuses on the effectiveness of group treatment for individuals with aphasia.

 

Listener Take-aways

In today’s episode you will:

• Describe the evidence supporting aphasia conversation groups as an effective interventions for linguistic and psychosocial outcomes.
• Differentiate the potential benefits of dyads versus larger groups in relation to client goals.
• Identify how aphasia severity and group composition can influence treatment outcomes.

 

Edited transcript

Lyssa Rome

Welcome to the Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Lyssa Rome. I'm a speech language pathologist on staff at the Aphasia Center of California and I see clients with aphasia and other neurogenic communication disorders in my LPAA-focused private practice. I'm also a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources.

 

I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Dr. Elizabeth Hoover, who was selected as a 2024 Tavistock Trust for Aphasia Distinguished Scholar, USA and Canada.

 

Liz Hoover is a clinical professor of speech language and hearing sciences and the clinical director of the Aphasia Resource Center at Boston University. She holds board certification from the Academy of Neurologic Communication Disorders and Sciences, or ANCDS, and is an ASHA fellow. Liz was a founding member of Aphasia Access and served on the board for several years. She has 30 years of experience working with people with aphasia and other communication disorders across the continuum of care. She's contributed to numerous presentations and publications, and most of her work focuses on the effectiveness of group treatment for individuals with aphasia. Liz, welcome back to the podcast.

 

So in 2017 you spoke with Ellen Bernstein Ellis about intensive comprehensive aphasia programs or ICAPs and inter professional practice at the Aphasia Resource Center at BU and treatment for verb production using VNest, among other topics. So this time, I thought we could focus on some of your recent research with Gayle DeDe and others on conversation group treatment.

 

Liz Hoover

Sounds good.

 

Lyssa Rome

All right, so my first question is how you became interested in studying group treatment?

 

Liz Hoover

Yeah, I actually have Dr. Jan Avent to thank for my interest in groups. She was my aphasia professor when I was a graduate student doing my masters at Cal State East Bay. As you know, Cal State East Bay is home to the Aphasia Treatment Program. When I was there, it preceded ATP. But I was involved in her cooperative group treatment study, and as a graduate student, I was allowed to facilitate some of her groups in this study, and I was involved in the moderate-to-severe group. She was also incredibly generous at sharing that very early body of wo