Practical guide for aphasia-friendly summaries (Kasdan et al., 2025)

Purpose: Research in aphasiology is largely not accessible. Almost none of the articles published in the field’s rich, over 150-year history are communicated in a way that is understandable to those who could benefit from them the most—individuals with aphasia and their loved ones. In this tutorial, we detail how researchers in any field of aphasiology can create aphasia-friendly research summaries of their scientific publications. This step-by-step guide in eight simple parts covers principles of aphasia-friendly written communication (e.g., use of plain language and supportive icons and images) and makes use of freely available resources. We also introduce a prototype tool—Article Friend—that automatically generates aphasia-friendly abstracts to jump-start this process for researchers; this preliminary tool serves as a proof of concept that creating accessible research can be an efficient, sustainable practice in the scientific publishing landscape.

Conclusions: The tutorial provides researchers with specific tools and examples to effectively and easily create aphasia-friendly summaries of their publications. Principles from our tutorial extend beyond aphasia and can apply to consumers affected by other communication and cognitive disorders, such as developmental language disorder, dementia, and traumatic brain injury. Making research available to patient stakeholders and their loved ones can empower them to access and understand the research they have contributed to, ultimately furthering increased community engagement and interchange between researchers, clinicians, consumers with aphasia, and policymakers.

Supplemental Material S1. The aphasia group of middle Tennessee: How it works.

Supplemental Material S2. Using math and the brain to predict language recovery after stroke.

Supplemental Material S3. Helpful aphasia group at Vanderbilt.

Supplemental Material S4. Predicting speech recovery after stroke.

Kasdan, A. V., Levy, D. F., Pedisich, I., Wilson, S. M., & Herrington, D. (2025). A practical guide to translating scientific publications into aphasia-friendly summaries. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2025_PERSP-24-00141