City Research Online

Abstract

Background: Clinical practice guidelines support the use of aphasia therapy to reduce language impairment and communication disability. Aphasia is a heterogeneous condition and many therapy approaches are used in clinical practice. Selecting appropriate therapies and accessing therapy resources can be challenging for clinicians. The Aphasia Therapy Finder (ATF) is an implementation tool for speech-language pathologists designed to bridge the evidence-practice gap in aphasia rehabilitation.

Methods & Procedures: Discussions with speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and an international survey confirmed that therapists struggle to stay abreast of the latest aphasia rehabilitation evidence. SLPs’ priorities informed the development of the ATF. Initially, a prototype web-based repository of therapy descriptions and resources was developed and tested with clinicians around the world. Following user testing, additional content was developed and deployed on the ATF.

Outcomes: The ATF is a free searchable database (www.aphasiatherapyfinder.com) that contains detailed therapy descriptions for 25 evidence-based aphasia therapies and links to the resources clinicians need to use the therapies in their clinics. Therapy descriptions have been rigorously produced with input from over 60 aphasia researchers. User testing has validated the ATF functionality and content.

Conclusion: The Aphasia Therapy Finder provides a mechanism to reduce the evidence-practice gap in aphasia rehabilitation and, thereby, improve access to high quality evidence-based therapy for people with aphasia around the world. Future work will expand the ATF and evaluate its utility as an implementation tool.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Publisher Keywords:	Therapy, intervention, implementation tool
Subjects:	R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Language & Communication Science
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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