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A Personal Narrative: Living with the Experience of Aphasia, Verbal Dyspraxia and Foreign Accent Syndrome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2015

Corinne Othenin-Girard
Corinne Othenin-Girard*
Affiliation:
The MIECAT Institute Inc., Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia
*
Address for correspondence: Corinne Othenin-Girard, E-mail: cothenin@bluewin.ch
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Abstract

This paper is a personal exploration of one woman's lived experience with aphasia, verbal dyspraxia and accent change following cryptogenic ischaemic stroke. I share insights into my experiences, especially of an emotional and cultural nature, after growing up multilingual in Europe and then living with communication changes in a predominantly English-speaking country (Australia) and following return to Europe. My formal reflections commenced 15 years after the stroke and, following my previous studies in the medical field, multimodal visual arts and philosophy, were initiated in the context of postgraduate study emphasising a multimodal arts-based, collaborative, experiential approach to reconstructing understandings of experiences, values and meanings. Central features of this personal narrative include emergent, iterative enquiry and learning: emergent, in that the enquiry was open-ended, allowing for an element of surprise and the opportunity to pursue unanticipated directions; iterative, in that it involved knowingly experiencing and conversing about what had been discovered in order to engage with the process of continuous meaning-making. Following the enquiry, fellow students provided intersubjective responses to issues that touched personal reflection on their part. In particular, I highlight one fellow student's intersubjective responses that touched me in return by providing especially pertinent understanding and images.

Keywords

qualitative inquirypersonal narrativeiterative reflexivityaphasiaverbal dyspraxiaforeign accent syndromeintersubjective responsestorytelling as enquirymetaphorshumour in recovery
Type
Articles
Information
Brain Impairment , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , December 2014 , pp. 202 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Australasian Society for the Study of Brain Impairment 2015 

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