Inner speech in the daily lives of people with aphasia

Abstract

Purpose: Evaluating the extent to which adults with aphasia experience inner speech in their daily lives. Methods: Employing descriptive experience sampling (DES) and survey methodology, N=24 adults with post-stroke chronic aphasia participated in a three-week study. The presence of “in the moment” inner speech was assessed at 30 time-points and themes of inner speech at three time-points. We explored the extent to which aphasia severity and anosognosia (lack of insight) related to inner speech presence and themes. Results: We had low attrition (8%) and high compliance (96%). Our sample experienced “in the moment” inner speech in a majority of sampled instances (81.5%). The most common themes were when remembering (M=86.36%), to plan (M=84.5%), and to motivate oneself (M=81.82%). There was no significant relationship between aphasia severity and “in the moment” or theme of inner speech. We identified that adults with probable anosognosia had significantly fewer instances of “in the moment” inner speech. We did not identify a significant relationship between anosognosia and inner speech theme.Conclusion: Adults with aphasia experience inner speech often, with some shared themes (e.g., remembering, planning) and use inner speech to explore themes that are not as heavily seen in young adults in other studies (e.g., to talk to themselves about health). High compliance and low attrition suggest design feasibility, and results emphasize the importance of collecting data in age-similar, non-brain-damaged peers as well as in adults with other neurogenic communication disorders to fully understand the experience and use of inner speech.