More Than Aphasia, INC

Category: Advocacy

  • “I have APHASIA, but aphasia does not have me”!

    “I have APHASIA, but aphasia does not have me”!

    By this motto, I mean that aphasia does not win over me! There are daily communication challenges that aphasia brings, but there are daily “wins” that I acknowledge.

    Today I had to make several business calls. I find that most persons who work on the phone a lot, tend to speak too fast for my to process all information that say.

    Today, I advocated for my communication needs by identifying myself as a person with aphasia. I shared a friendly definition of aphasia, how aphasia does not impact my intelligence, and that over 2 million people in the United States have aphasia.

    I listed 3 ways that the customer service rep. could help me have a successful phone call:

    • Speak slowly and clearly
    • Say all numbers as single digits (instead of giving an address as 187 West St. say “one, eight, seven” West St.
    • Please confirm any numbers I give you any numbers (and I will give them to you one digit as a time)

    Yep, 4 phone calls, 3 addresses, one LOOONNNNGGGG confirmation number with letters and digits, and all were successful! I handled my business and count that as a BIG WIN!

  • ??? APHASIA ???

    What IS Aphasia?

    Do you know that over 84 percent of all Americans have never heard of the word “aphasia”.

    Do you know that over 2 million people in America are living with aphasia?

    Aphasia is a chronic disorder that impacts a person’s ability to communicate.

    It is caused by damage to the part of the brain that processes language.

    Aphasia can impact speaking, reading, writing, mathematics, and comprehension/processing of language.

    There are different symptoms and different levels of severity with aphasia. Therefore it is very individual to each person with aphasia as it depends on the size and the location of the brain injury.

    Aphasia is mostly caused by stroke, traumatic brain injury, and even disease.