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Community Corner

Northwestern Sponsors Aphasia Awareness Event

Northwestern University is hosting the 1st Annual Walk and Talk Picnic for Aphasia Awareness on June 28th in honor of June as National Aphasia Awareness Month. Aphasia, an often unrecognized but common disorder, affects the ability to understand and use language in approximately one million Americans.

Adults of all ages as well as children can acquire aphasia from stroke or head injury, brain tumor, or other neurological causes. While aphasia does not affect intelligence, a new reality often accompanies the disorder as communication challenges alter relationships, family roles and work. Daily activities that involve language, including using the phone, sending e-mails, and chatting with neighbors, may suddenly become difficult.

The Walk and Talk Picnic takes place on Saturday, June 28, from 11-4 on the Evanston campus and is hosted by Northwestern's Center for the Neurobiology of Language Recovery, Aphasia and Neurolinguistics Research Laboratory and the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders’ Speech, Language, and Learning (SLL) Clinic. More details, including registration and parking information, are available at http://bit.ly/AphasiaPicnic.

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Northwestern University dedicates significant resources to battling aphasia, including research, teaching, support groups, individual and group therapy, and houses the nation's only NIH funded Clinical Research Center for aphasia research. The Center’s Aphasia and Neurolinguistics Research Laboratory has made significant contributions to brain and language research, finding that language and communication ability improve with treatment several years after the onset of aphasia. Opportunities for participation in aphasia treatment and brain studies currently are available in the lab. Traditional and intensive treatment programs also are offered in the SLL Clinic to strengthen language-processing and communication abilities. Traditional therapy is offered year round and includes individual and group sessions. An intensive four-week aphasia treatment program is offered in the fall, winter and spring. Fall session dates are October 13-November 6, with a September 8 registration deadline.

FAQs about aphasia and communication tips are available from Northwestern's Aphasia and Neurolinguistics Research Laboratory website at http://bit.ly/1tjpT9Y. For details about aphasia therapy options, please visit http://SLLClinic.Northwestern.edu or call 847-491-5012. 

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