During my first couple of years working as a speech pathologist in the rehab setting with individuals with neurological communication impairments, I was constantly asked the same questions over and over towards the end of therapy: ”Where do I go from here?” and “What’s next?” Every patient had a similar trajectory – inpatient rehab to outpatient rehab and then what? Life, that’s what. But how do you do “life” with aphasia? ” Who’s going to understand me? Who’s going to be patient with me? It’s too frustrating. I just can’t do this.” That’s what my patients were saying. And unfortunately, as the expert I didn’t have any good answers.
Then, one day, things changed…