CBR Seminar Series: Jennifer Mack
CBR Seminar Series: Jennifer Mack, July 14, 2025
Title: Improving Communication Partners’ Comprehension of People with Aphasia: A Language Processing-Based Approach
Abstract: People with aphasia (PWA) often have difficulty conveying their thoughts to communication partners. One way to address this problem is to improve communication partners’ skills in understanding PWA. In a new line of research, our lab is working to improve communication partners’ comprehension of PWA, using an approach grounded in models and methods of language processing. This approach involves investigating and enhancing the processes that take place as communication partners encounter errors, disfluencies, and other features of language produced by PWA. This presentation will discuss our in-progress research that investigates whether shifting unfamiliar communication partners’ attitudes enhances their processing and comprehension of language produced by PWA.
Bio:
Education
BA, Linguistics, Rice University
MA and PhD, Linguistics, Yale University
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Psychology and Linguistics, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
Current Position
Assistant Professor, Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences and Neuroscience and Behavior Graduate Program, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Areas of Interest
Post-stroke aphasia, primary progressive aphasia, language processing, neural organization of language, communication partner interventions