A parade of renowned researchers gave lectures today, during the second day of the Nordic Aphasia Conference. Julius Fridriksson (from the University of South Carolina) reminded us that every idea we can come up with probably allready has been tried out by someone else. For example, the idea of Speech Entrainment (where the person with aphasia articulates words at the same time as someone else, looking at their mouth) was studied in 1913. He showed us a photo of the brain from one of the participants in the 1913 study and it was really striking to see the damage.
I also enjoyed Monica Blom Johansson’s talk about the impact of aphasia on the life of significant others. She pointed out that there is a correlation between family members’ knowledge about aphasia and the quality of the relationships. The more information the family members get about aphasia, the better the relations within the family. Now, there’s a pedagogical challenge!
I was also very pleased to find the most tipically Danish dessert I know, at the lunch buffé: Rødgrød med fløde.
