Empathy, Post-Stroke Aphasia, and Speech-Language Pathology Students

ABSTRACT

Background

Empathy is a multidimensional construct potentially important in communicating with an individual with aphasia and for students pursuing a career in speech-language pathology. Unfortunately, little is known about empathy towards someone with aphasia among the general public and speech-language pathologists.

Aims

The aims of the current study are to explore whether (1) prior knowledge of aphasia predicts state and dispositional empathy after viewing a video of an adult with post-stroke aphasia; (2) state and dispositional empathy differs between a group of individuals seeking a profession in speech-language pathology and those who are not; (3) state and dispositional empathy differ between speech-language pathology undergraduate and graduate students.

Methods

Two hundred-six participants viewed a video of a male with aphasia engaged in three language tasks and then rated themselves with the Batson Empathy Adjectives (BEA) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; empathic concern and perspective taking).

Results

State empathy is not influenced by prior knowledge, however, knowledge does predict type of dispositional empathy. Furthermore, state and dispositional empathy does not differ between a group of individuals seeking a profession in speech-language pathology and those who are not seeking this profession. Additionally, state and dispositional empathy do not differ between undergraduate and graduate students in speech-language pathology.

Conclusions

These findings have implications for programs designed to increase public awareness of post-stroke aphasia as well as speech-language pathology graduate programs.

KEYWORDS:

• aphasia
• empathy
• speech-language pathology

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to Erica Freestone, Isabella Spir, and Caitlyn Ray for their assistance in data collection. Additional thanks to the adult with aphasia for his willingness to volunteer for this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.