Since 2011, Larry Boles, PhD, CCC-SLP, graduate director and professor of speech-language-pathology, has organized a conversation group known as the Pacific Aphasia Conversation Team (PACT) for individuals who have aphasia. This group is open to community members and focuses on helping them regain communication skills.
For individuals striving to regain their language skills, PACT offers a space of understanding forged by shared experience. Dr. Boles hope that the successes the clients experience within the group will bolster their confidence and be a source of encouragement when they find communication to be difficult.
Conversations are guided by Dr. Boles and the two to four Pacific speech-language pathology graduate students who assist him each semester. He looks for students who display compassion and discernment when interacting with clients.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Boles has provided one-on-one therapy sessions to over 500 clients who have been affected by aphasia. Dr. Boles has also presented his research on the role of a spouse in the treatment process at annual meetings of the California Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and at international meetings in Taiwan and Australia.
Aphasia is a language problem that includes receptive and/or expressive linguistic components common across verbal expression, reading and/or writing caused by a central nervous system dysfunction. Aphasia can be compared to learning a foreign language. The difference is that, rather than learning a new language, individuals must relearn language itself. To learn more about aphasia, visit the National Aphasia Association website.
For more information on the Pacific Aphasia Conversation Team, contact Larry Boles at lboles@pacific.edu or 209.946.7490.
