Abstract:

Communication participation in adolescents with acquired brain injuries (ABI) has received limited attention. The aim of the present study was to investigate the views of the adolescents themselves (N = 8), in comparison to parent evaluations (N = 11) of daily communication, using the Communicative Effectiveness Index in combination with individual interviews. Two frameworks for analyses, Activity based Communication Analyses and the distributed cognition approach, identified three main areas of interest: Situations where communication difficulties occur, Coping behaviours used by participants to manage communication difficulties, and, Causes of the communication difficulties. An overall high agreement between the adolescent and parent assessments was shown. However, complex communicative situations more frequently received lower scores in the parent ratings. The results of the study point to the usability of a systematic comparison of the shared points of views on communication after ABI in adolescence, to increase knowledge about the participation perspective in real life communication.

Author: Åsa Fyrberg, Karin Strid, Elisabeth Ahlsén, Gunilla Thunberg