ARTICLE
Training of non-verbal behaviours of persons after left sided brain stroke
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Psychoter 2010;153(2):69-80
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ABSTRACT
The article describes the training of non-verbal behaviours of persons after left-sided brain stroke, designed to enable them for being more efficient communicators, in connection to their partial paralysis (dyskinesia) and partial or total aphasia. Training of this type has to make the patient a more conscious sender of non-verbal messages, and also their recipient - to be able to compensate for the loss of ability of communicating using words and totality of verbal acts passed earlier on (before the stroke of the brain) by the right part of the body (mainly the upper limb). Overall, the training of non-verbal communication has to achieve two equivalent functions - the improvement of communication and the influence of psychotherapy. Training of non-verbal behaviours of persons with brain stroke is based on the use of a variety of specific techniques such as role playing (involving the reconstruction of real events in simulated conditions), psychodrama techniques (mirror, double, switching roles and monologue), a combination of techniques to play the roles of the playback technique and modelling. A profitable strategy of working with people after brain stroke is to introduce elements of non-verbal behaviours of training which are specific to other cultures. The participants of the training learn about various intercultural uses of the non-verbal remittances and have an opportunity not only to enrich their knowledge on the communication preferences of given nations, but also to improve skills of activating the individual channels of the wordless code. Depending on the condition of patients, the degree of their impairment of speech and motor skills, the training must be conducted in the form of individual or group meetings. Individual sessions should be practiced in working with people with aphasia and total partial paralysis. An individual training can turn out to be the only possible way of providing certain basic skills of communicating on the non-verbal level. Ultimately however, one should strive to ensure that patients with postictal symptoms passed first through individual training and then the group training.