CSUEB's Aphasia Treatment Program partners with Yosemite for award from Stroke Association

• November 4, 2013 10:00am

The National Stroke Association has honored a recently completed project for which Cal State East Bay’s Aphasia Treatment Program partnered with the National Park Service and Yosemite Conservancy to create the first aphasia-friendly guide to Yosemite.

That partnership was presented with the National Stroke Association’s RAISE (Raising Awareness In Stroke Excellence) Award for “most creative” project for 2013.

Professor Emerita Jan Avent, Aphasia Treatment Program (ATP) Director Ellen Bernstein-Ellis and other CSUEB ATP colleagues provided review and feedback to the conservancy and the park service on that aphasia-friendly guide as it was being developed, Bernstein-Ellis said. The guide includes walking tours and notes specific services for persons who have aphasia, a communications disorder that most commonly occurs after a stroke. It affects speaking, understanding, reading and writing. Approximately two million Americans are living with the condition.

As part of the promotion of the new guide, the Aphasia Tones, a chorus made up of clients of CSUEB’s Aphasia Treatment Program, performed last June before an audience at Yosemite.

“We’re proud that we were called upon to partner with park service and conservancy in this very important project,” Bernstein-Ellis said.

Cal State East Bay’s Aphasia Treatment Program was founded in 1996 by Avent. In addition to speech and language treatment, the program includes communicative discussion groups and a book club among many other activities. Bernstein-Ellis developed the Aphasia Tones in 2009.  

BZ