The effects of disclosure on university students' perceptions of a person with aphasia.

Aphasia is a neurogenic language disorder usually caused by a stroke. The resulting language impairments typically include word-retrieval deficits, which lead to a decreased ability to communicate functionally. This increases the frustration of the person with aphasia (PWA), leading to social isolation, decreased autonomy, and depression. Individuals with aphasia often have increased difficulty interacting with unfamiliar communicative partners, which can result in negative perceptions among listeners. However, self-disclosure of the disorder can allow for the empowerment of the individual and increased understanding of the situation for the listener. Toward that end, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate the impact of self-disclosure, other-mediated disclosure, and no disclosure on the listeners’ perceptions of the PWA’s speech skills and personality characteristics. The present study utilized an experimental survey design to evaluate the relative impact of different disclosure conditions on listeners’ perceptions of a PWA’s speech skills and personality characteristics. An adult female diagnosed with aphasia served as the speaker in the study. The individuals who served as listeners were 201undergraduate students majoring in Communication Sciences and Disorders. There were 67 students in self-disclosure condition (i.e., the PWA gave a verbal disclosure statement prior to her videotaped conversation with the examiner), 68 students in the other-mediated disclosure condition (i.e., the examiner disclosed for the PWA), and 66 students in the no disclosure condition. Students watched one or more video(s), depending on the condition, and then rated the PWA on several speech skills and personality characteristics. Results revealed that self-disclosure yielded significantly more positive listeners’ perceptions than other-mediated disclosure for seven of the 17 traits measured. Furthermore, self-disclosure yielded significantly more positive listeners’ perceptions than no disclosure for 13 of the 17 traits measured. The other-mediated disclosure did not yield significantly more positive ratings than the no disclosure condition for any traits measured. These findings suggest that the use of self-disclosure impacts the listener beyond simply reducing listener uncertainty. This further supports the use of self-disclosure by PWA when feasible. However, clinicians can have a major role in teaching the importance of self-disclosure, as well as facilitating its use among clients.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Grantor

Baylor University.

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Franks, Caroline C., 1998-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Blanchet, Paul (Associate professor of speech-language pathology)

• Aphasia.
• Quality of life.
• Perceptions.

Statement dc:rights

• Baylor University works are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. Contact libraryquestions@baylor.edu for inquiries about permission.

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/2104/13923

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:baylor-ir.tdl.org:2104/13923