AphasiaBank is a shared database of multimedia interactions for the study of communication in aphasia. The goal of this work is the improvement of patient- oriented treatment of aphasia. To reach that goal, we must solidify the empirical database supporting our understanding of communication in aphasia. Our six specific aims are: 1. Protocol database development. We will continue to expand the core database to include additional participants, languages, bilingual types, and clinical profiles (severe aphasia, RHD, dementia, AOS, PPA, and PPAOS). 2. Analysis Automation. We will construct tools for automatic computation of scales for clinical diagnosis and the measurement of recovery processes. Using these new measures and the growing database, we will work with consortium members to develop new approaches to assessment, diagnosis, and classification. 3. Johnny Appleseed. We will disseminate the data, tools, and methods through personal contact, workshops, manuals, tutorials, collaborative commentary, journal publications, and downloads over the Internet. We will construct materials for training and teaching. We will place particular emphasis on dissemination of these tools to institutions serving minority populations. 4. Cross-disorder comparisons. We will link the English AphasiaBank database to the growing databases in the DementiaBank, TBIBank, and RHD projects, as well as new data in AphasiaBank for AOS, PPA, and PPAOS. 5. Recovery and treatment evaluation. We will continue retesting of PWAs to evaluate the nature of recovery in the chronic period. We will evaluate the effects of programs such as teletherapy, script learning and repetition, and group conversation programs. 6. Functional Communication. We will develop methods for measuring and evaluating the ways in which people with aphasia, including those with severe impairments, achieve communication through gesture, conversational scaffolding, and augmentative communication devices.

At a given time, there are approximately 1.2 million people with aphasia in the United States. The annual cost of treatment is roughly $10 billion. The overarching goal of NIH patient-oriented work on aphasia is to develop treatments that can help patients improve their communicative use of language. The goal of AphasiaBank is the development of standardized evaluation methods to guide the development and evaluation of effective methods for improving language usage in people with aphasia.