An interventional study of Aphasia identification (ID) card in Aphasia, sponsored by University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Recruiting at 1 site in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 59 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-08-14.
Sponsored by University of Massachusetts, Amherst · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment
The goal of this clinical trial is to learn whether healthy volunteers are more successful at understanding people with aphasia if they have first viewed an aphasia identification (ID) card. The main questions this study aims to answer are:
Researchers will compare aphasia ID cards to a control condition (no ID card) to see whether aphasia ID cards improve healthy volunteers' understanding.
Healthy volunteers will visit the study site for a single session (about 2 hours long). During the session they will:
People with aphasia often experience challenges conveying their thoughts to unfamiliar communication partners, which is critical for living independently and building new social connections. This line of research has two long-term objectives: to improve unfamiliar communication partners' comprehension of people with aphasia, and to support people with aphasia in advocating for their communication needs. This project addresses these goals with a focus on service workers, who interact directly with customers to provide goods, services, or information. Being understood by service workers is often necessary to complete essential tasks such as purchasing food and picking up medication. This project investigates whether service workers comprehend speakers with aphasia more accurately when they have first read an aphasia identification (ID) card. Aphasia ID cards contain written self-advocacy statements that disclose the speaker's aphasia, define aphasia, and provide guidance on how to communicate successfully. These statements have been shown to improve unfamiliar communication partners' attitudes (knowledge about aphasia, emotions, and behavior), which improves communication experiences for people with aphasia. This project tests the central hypothesis that, by improving unfamiliar communication partners' attitudes, aphasia ID cards facilitate key language processes that improve their comprehension of people with aphasia. This randomized controlled trial will enroll 160 service workers. Half of the service workers will view an aphasia ID card for a speaker with aphasia, and half will not. Then, all service workers will complete tasks measuring their attitudes, language processing, and comprehension of service requests (i.e., requests for goods, services, or information) produced by speakers with aphasia. Eye-tracking will be used to measure key language processes that take place while service workers listen to the service requests. The Specific Aims are to investigate how viewing an aphasia ID card affects service workers' attitudes, language processing, and comprehension when people with aphasia produce long pauses (Aim 1) and paraphasias (word-retrieval errors) (Aim 2). By rigorously investigating the effects of aphasia ID cards on service workers' attitudes, language processing, and comprehension, this project will contribute to the long-term goals of improving unfamiliar communication partners' comprehension and helping people with aphasia self-advocate effectively.
338 studies on the registry are indexed under Aphasia; 95 are open to participants now.
This study's planned enrollment of 160 is above the median of 30 across 298 interventional studies indexed under Aphasia.
Browse Aphasia studies →University of Massachusetts, Amherst is the lead sponsor of 48 studies on the registry; 5 are open to participants now.
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Exclusion Criteria:
Participants will view an aphasia ID card for a speaker with aphasia. The card will disclose the speaker's aphasia, define aphasia, and request time to communicate.
Behavioral: Aphasia identification (ID) card
Participants in this arm will not receive an intervention.
Participants will view an aphasia ID card for a speaker with aphasia. The card will disclose the speaker's aphasia, define aphasia, and request time to communicate.
Comprehension accuracy for sentences with long pauses in the Service Request Comprehension Task
Percent correct mouse-click responses on the Service Request Comprehension Task for sentences with long pauses. The Service Request Comprehension Task measures participants' comprehension and processing of language produced by a speaker with aphasia.
Time frame: 5 minutes post-intervention
Comprehension accuracy for sentences with paraphasias in the Service Request Comprehension Task
Percent correct mouse-click responses on the Service Request Comprehension Task for sentences with paraphasias (word-retrieval errors). The Service Request Comprehension Task measures participants' comprehension and processing of language produced by a speaker with aphasia.
Time frame: 5 minutes post-intervention
Visual attention during long pauses in the Service Request Comprehension Task
Mean proportion of time in which the participant gazes at task-relevant pictures during long pauses, indicating attention to task. The Service Request Comprehension Task measures participants' comprehension and processing of language produced by a speaker with aphasia.
Time frame: 5 minutes post-intervention
Linguistic integration of words immediately following long pauses in the Service Request Comprehension Task
Mean proportion of time in which the participant gazes at the target picture during words immediately following long pauses, indicating linguistic integration of those words. The Service Request Comprehension Task measures participants' comprehension and processing of language produced by a speaker with aphasia.
Time frame: 5 minutes post-intervention
Implicit repair of paraphasias in the Service Request Comprehension Task
Mean proportion of time in which the participant gazes at the target picture in the 1000 ms following paraphasias (word-retrieval errors), indicating implicit repair of the speaker's errors. The Service Request Comprehension Task measures participants' comprehension and processing of language produced by a speaker with aphasia.
Time frame: 5 minutes post-intervention
Rating of own patience on the Attitude Survey
Rating scale, 0-100 scale with question "When listening to the speaker, I felt \_\_\_\_\_", with endpoints of "impatient" on the zero side and "patient" on the 100 side. Higher scores mean a better outcome. The Attitude Survey measures participants' knowledge, beliefs, and emotions relating to listening to a speaker with aphasia.
Time frame: 0 minutes (immediately) post-intervention, 45 minutes post-intervention
Rating of speaker with aphasia's intelligence on the Attitude Survey
Rating scale, 0-100 scale with question "I think that the speaker is \_\_\_\_\_", with endpoints of "unintelligent" on the zero side and "intelligent" on the 100 side. Higher scores mean a better outcome. The Attitude Survey measures participants' knowledge, beliefs, and emotions relating to listening to a speaker with aphasia.
Time frame: 0 minutes (immediately) post-intervention, 45 minutes post-intervention
Rating of speaker with aphasia's language skills on the Attitude Survey
Rating scale, 0-100 scale with question "I think that it was \_\_\_\_\_ for the speaker to find the words for what they wanted to say", with endpoints of "hard" on the zero side and "easy" on the 100 side. Lower scores mean a better outcome. The Attitude Survey measures participants' knowledge, beliefs, and emotions relating to listening to a speaker with aphasia.
Time frame: 0 minutes (immediately) post-intervention, 45 minutes post-intervention
Plan to share: Yes — Data to be generated from this project include language processing data collected through eye-tracking, comprehension accuracy data (mouse-click responses), and participants' responses to a survey measuring their attitudes. De-identified raw survey data and comprehension accuracy data will be preserved and shared. Deidentified, preprocessed eye-tracking data will be preserved and shared.
Supporting information: Study protocol
Time frame: De-identified data will be available upon publication of related work or the end of the project period, whichever comes first, and will remain available indefinitely.
Access criteria: IPD and supporting information will be freely available on Open Science Framework.
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University of Massachusetts, Amherst