Background and Aims:Changes to cognitive-communication skills, including changes to reading comprehension, are common in adults following acquired or traumatic brain injury. Cognitivecommunication reading comprehension (CCRC) deficits occur at a discourse level, are evident early post-injury and can persist long-term. CCRC deficits have been reported across international populations, and can impact a person's reading ability, participation and independence with tasks involving reading both during rehabilitation and upon return home. If reading comprehension deficits are addressed early in recovery, participation in activities that require discourse-level reading may improve -both early in recovery (e.g., rehabilitation tasks, leisure activities) and longer term (e.g., reading skills for living independently and/or community participation).Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) provide rehabilitation for CCRC deficits for adults with brain injury, including during early (i.e., sub-acute and post-hospital discharge) rehabilitation. However, there is a lack of published evidence to inform clinical practice regarding the management of reading deficits during early recovery (i.e., <6m post-onset).This evidence-gap impacts SLPs internationally in providing early rehabilitation services to adults with acquired brain injury (ABI) and CCRC deficits.The aim of this thesis was two-fold:(1) To develop a reading comprehension intervention for adults with CCRC deficits that is evidence-based, responsive to contextual and service delivery factors, and able to be delivered by SLPs during sub-acute and early rehabilitation;(2) To evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention with individuals during early rehabilitation, including identifying intervention effectiveness and the experiences of clients and families.
Method:This thesis used an emergent multi-phase mixed method design. To address Aim 1, a number of studies were undertaken, including:• Investigating the clinical context and service delivery of sub-acute SLPs working within specialised Australian brain injury rehabilitation centres (reported in Chapter 3); thematic analyses of semi-structured interviews. These were: positive change, supporting independence and self-efficacy, salience, therapeutic alliance and intensity.
Conclusion:The evidence base for managing CCRC deficits following ABI has been identified, and an evidence-based contextually-sensitive intervention and service delivery model for the early rehabilitation of CCRC disorders has been developed and successfully piloted. This study has provided preliminary evidence regarding the early intervention for CCRC deficits (at an impairment / skill, activity and participation level) in adults with acquired brain injury, as demonstrated by improvements on formal assessments, SCED results, and as reported by participants / significant others. As such, SLPs should consider addressing reading comprehension early in recovery as a key component of their rehabilitation of cognitivecommunication disorders. Further research is ...