Episode #122: Communication Access, Justice, and Ethics with Elissa Larkin

Aphasia Access Conversations

Interviewer info

Lyssa Rome is a speech-language pathologist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is on staff at the Aphasia Center of California, where she facilitates groups for people with aphasia and their care partners. She owns an LPAA-focused private practice and specializes in working with people with aphasia, dysarthria, and other neurogenic conditions. She has worked in acute hospital, skilled nursing, and continuum of care settings. Prior to becoming an SLP, Lyssa was a public radio journalist, editor, and podcast producer.

In this episode, Lyssa Rome interviews Elissa Larkin about her work to increase communication access within her hospital system via communication partner training programs and her dual role as a speech-language pathologist and bioethicist.

Guest info

Elissa Larkin, M.S., CCC-SLP, HEC-C is a Bioethicist and Research Speech-Language Pathologist at the Center for Aphasia Research and Treatment at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. Elissa earned her Master of Science in Communication Disorders with bilingual certification (Spanish) at Arizona State University and completed advanced training in bioethics at Northwestern Medicine Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, subsequently earning national certification as a Healthcare Ethics Consultant. Elissa’s areas of professional focus include applications of ethical frameworks to promote patient rights and shared-decision making in rehabilitation practice, Life Participation Approach to Aphasia-centered research and treatment, and interprofessional education models to increase communication access and equity for all patients. Elissa received the 2023 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Louis M. DiCarlo Award for Recent Clinical Achievement for her work in communication access education and advocacy.

Listener Take-aways

In today’s episode you will:

• Understand the theory behind implementing communication access strategies at the institutional level in a variety of practice settings.
• Learn about some techniques to effectively teach supported communication to colleagues from different disciplines.
• Describe the impact on patients and rehab professionals of communication access.

Edited Transcript

Lyssa Rome

Welcome to the Aphasia Access Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Lyssa Rome. I'm a speech-language pathologist on staff at the Aphasia Center of California, and I see clients with aphasia and other neurogenic communication disorders in my LPAA-focused private practice. I'm also a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources. I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Elissa Larkin.

Elissa is a bioethicist, certified healthcare bioethics consultant, and research speech language pathologist at the Center for Aphasia Research and Treatment at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. She's also certified as a bilingual English/Spanish SLP. Her areas of professional focus include applications of ethical frameworks to promote patient rights and shared decision-making in rehabilitation practice, Life Participation Approach to Aphasia-centered research and treatment, and interprofessional education models to increase communication access and equity for all patients. Elissa received the 2023 American Speech Language Hearing Association Louis M. DeCarlo award for recent clinical achievement for her work in communication access education and advocacy.

Elissa, I am so glad to be talking to you today. I'm really excited for this conversation.

Elissa Larkin

Thank you so much. Lyssa, I'm very excited too.

Lyssa Rome

I thought we could start by having you introduce yourself a little bit more.

Elissa Larkin

Okay, sure, as you said, my name is Elissa Larkin. My pronouns are she/her/hers. In terms of positionality, I am a white, cisgender, middle aged woman, and before we really jump in, I also want to acknowledge and describe the context I work in—as a very resourced research and rehabilitation hospital. I want to explicitly recognize that because a number of things I'll share were made possible by very generous mentors and institutional resources that I know are unique and not necessarily available everywhere. I'll try to offer examples from my experiences, and really hope there will be things people can pick and choose pieces from that may fit where they practice.

Lyssa Rome

Yeah, and having spoken with you about this, I think that there are things that clinicians in a variety of contexts will be able to take away. So you have this really interesting background in bioethics. It's unusual for people in our field, and I'm curious, how did you get there? Why did you decide to do that bioethics training, and how has that informed your practice?

Elissa Larkin

Thank you. What a wonderful question to start with, and I'm grateful for the way that path unfolded. In my clinical practice, as an SLP, I think it was often issues of justice that motivated me the most, alongside my patients and families. We have a very active and engaged ethics department within our hospital, and so I got to partner with the ethicists at times on cases where there were issues that arose for some of my patients with communication disabilities. I was fascinated by how the process worked and how much patient rights and preferences were really centered very genuinely.

At some point, I had the opportunity to do more training in a program that was designed for practicing clinicians—it was like, part time, over two years—arose, and I jumped at it. It was a wonderful grounding, kind of a broad overview and foundation of bioethics, principles and philosophies, theories, frameworks. And I felt like with each reading and class, honestly, Lyssa, I just there would be aha moments where it was like, ”Oh, there's a name for that thing that I've been experiencing.” Or, “Oh, this method of approaching a really complex, gray situation really helps make sense of it and gives you more of a place to start.” I think sometimes in clinical practice, we can feel really swept up in all of these complex things happening. And we want to do something, but it's hard to know where to start or how to even make sense of everything that's going on. I just felt like the clinically oriented ethics training program really helped me with that. And then the more I studied it, the more I wanted to do something with it.

It happened that when I finished the program, the ethics department within my hospital had someone retire from a part-time position, and so I threw my hat in the ring for that, and they hired me for the part time role. They took me on, basically, and provided me kind with an on-the-job fellowship for more of the clinical bioethics practice. And it's just been a really meaningful learning process.

Another piece I think that is important for me is that the program, the Donnelly ethics program here, was founded in 1995 by a physical medicine and rehab physician who's also a disability rights advocate. That very much informed the shape of the program and just how it was embedded in our hospital system, how it operates, and certainly how I was then trained. And so it just really aligned with my own philosophy as an SLP, and there's just been a lot of dovetailing.

As I said, the bioethicists on the team before I joined, none of them were speech pathologists. One has a legal background. There was a neuropsychologist, and then a PhD bioethicist, more academically trained. But they would partner with primary SLPs when the patient needed communication accommodations. Once I came onto the team, there was also a lot of openness. They really embraced my expertise, and I've gotten to work on most of the cases where a patient needs communication accommodations. And they've also really embraced learning these strategies themselves, implementing them. None of my colleagues go to consults now without a clipboard and a Sharpie.

Lyssa Rome

Wow, which is just living the dream.

Elissa Larkin

Yeah, they're doing it. You know, they're really embracing it.

Lyssa Rome

You've talked just now about how communication access is a part of the ethics work that you do, right? And it's part of what you think about as a bioethicist. And so I'm wondering how that ties into the work that you've done in trying to broaden access within your hospital system, and maybe you could talk a little bit about what you have done to broaden that access?

Elissa Larkin

Sure. Yeah, so communication partner training has become really central to my practice, and this is a place where I think mentorship is a really important part of my story. I work in the Center for Aphasia Research and Treatment. Leora Cherney is the director of the center, and she has been a mentor to me since before I joined the center, when I was a full-time clinician on the floor. She's someone who makes herself very available to SLPs throughout the organization, and so she provided guidance and support when I was learning about communication partner training and wanting to figure out a way to address things more broadly, as you said.

I think for a long time we have been giving our colleagues fish. You know, it's like we share a patient who has communication needs, and they ask us for advice and modeling to accommodate that one patient's needs. And we do that, and it helps that one patient.

And at some point I realized I wanted to teach people to fish. And so I started thinking about how to do that, and I sort of had this incremental from sort of like mini shoestring projects with a colleague on the floor. We both went to a Supported Communication for Adults with Aphasia, presentation that our colleague, Edie Babbitt, also a generous mentor, gave for our institution as a course. She had gone to the Aphasia Institute and done the Train the Trainer certification. And my colleague and I walked out of there and said, we have to do something like this on the floor. We have to do it more than how we're just doing it in a mini way, within the one hour we get for family education before someone discharges. We need to do something more dedicated.

So my colleague Julie Carpenter and I developed this one-hour training for patients and their care partners, family, friends, whoever could come. We offered a full hour just focused on that, and that sort of began my process. Once we had success with that. We could, I mean, you could see the care partners learning to fish. I wanted to learn more. I wanted to learn how to do it better. I wanted to learn what was behind these trainings in theory. And so I asked for support from the hospital to also go and do the Train the Trainer certification at the Aphasia Institute. And they said, “Yes, as long as in return, we'll ask you to also do a webinar for us.”

My grandmother was a career middle school teacher for over 30 years. She always said, “The best way to learn something is to teach someone else.” So I think the combination of preparing and delivering that webinar and going to the Aphasia Institute and learning just what I was looking for: the theory that was behind things, what they've learned over time, really from experts, and learning their system, helped really grow my knowledge and skills and sort of overall mindset of how to tackle this problem, this big problem, and maybe a bigger way take a little bigger chip out of it.

One of the things that in that Train the Trainer experience that really struck me was they challenged all of us to think about the communication environments where we practice and the systems they're in, and look for opportunities to embed communication partner training. And for me, when I did that, I thought about our clinical ladders program, or professional development structure. You know that clinicians kind of enroll in and take these different electives to grow their skills, but it's in this sort of structured, supported way within the hospital.

We already had a champion model, which is an implementation science model, a way of spreading knowledge and skills more broadly, sort of clinician-to-clinician. And I thought, what if we could have a champion program for communication strategies or communication accommodations? And I started working on that. And again, I went to Leora, who was very supportive and helped me think through how to structure it, and we pitched it as a pilot. In 2017 Edie Babbitt also mentored me in that program. We sort of thought through a curriculum of, how could I try to take what I learned from the smaller communication trainings I'd done and do it in a broader way and over more time.

So it's a year-long program for rehabilitation clinicians, and it started with four clinicians, a small group, but we had all allied health disciplines, represented SLPs, OT, PT, and all levels of care within our organization. We had two inpatient clinicians, an outpatient clinician, and someone from our day rehab program.

Throughout the pilot, the things that I really tried to center in the curriculum were practice—hands-on practice—opportunities to reflect: How did that go? What might you do differently? You know, we video record it, watched video recordings, discussed. And then also, opportunities for clinicians to apply it in their own practice and reflect on that too.

So, you know, the idea was kind of, I did the initial Supported Conversation for Adults with Aphasia training in the beginning, and that was sort of foundational. And then each time there were two months or so in between meetings, and their job was to take what they learned in the meeting and go put it in a practice with their patients. And they kept a log of just like once every couple of weeks, one example where they used communication accommodations with patients. And how did it go? What was the clinical context? What did you do? How'd it go? And that was the fuel for the discussion to start the next meeting off, we'd all come back and share. I borrowed a phrase from a community member with aphasia who runs his own community group. He always starts with thorns and roses. And so that's what we would do in Communication Champions. You know, “What's been challenging and what's going well?” And then also we would problem solve together. If someone brought a challenge and said, “I could really use help,” we would talk about it.

For me, something that was really rich about the experience was I learned a lot too, of course, especially from hearing how clinicians in other disciplines would tackle the problem. Once they have foundational knowledge, sometimes they approach something differently than I would as an SLP, in a way that I thought, “Oh, yeah, I think that'll work better. That totally makes sense.”

We all learned a lot through that part of the process. So I think the program gives that foundational knowledge. They put it into practice. Halfway through, their job changes to focus on mentoring others. So they do a case study presentation to all their teammates, and kind of launch themselves as a Communication Champion. So they're presenting about a patient, hopefully the whole team kind of knows, so it's really relevant and engaging, is the idea. And they emphasize the communication accommodations they used in clinical practice and the impact that it had. And then they tell their teammates, “I'm in this program, I'm learning these skills, and I can be a resource for you.”

And then the program really ends in helping the trainees get to a point where they're then thinking more broadly. We go from the examples of communication accommodations for patients with aphasia to other diagnoses, because people are in the program from all over the organization, we're working with very different patient populations, sometimes so accommodations for a person with locked in syndrome, accommodations for someone on a vent, all the different varieties, cognitive-communication accommodations, and then they think about the communication environment where they practice.

There's a wonderful article by Robin O'Halloran and colleagues from 2012. It's a metasynthesis of surveys done of various stakeholders, including patients with aphasia in an acute care setting and providers, as well as family members I believe, and collecting their input on communication facilitators and barriers. And then, you know, they came up with these six different categories. And so we read the article, and then the champions look at the environment where they work, because we know it can vary a lot across just one organization, which says a lot about how varied our patients' experiences can be, as well. And they break it down, what are the facilitators in my environment? What are barriers? And then we talk about it—is there any low hanging fruit? Are there any barriers that you could address that would be pretty easy to remedy, and are there any that would be really impactful to address?

And some of those trainees actually have gone on to do a project to address some of those barriers. We added a Communication Champions level two, where once you complete the program, if somebody wants to do basically an independent project, they can request support. And, you know, I provide mentorship if needed, I just support them however I can. And there have been some really neat things that have come out of that, too.

Lyssa Rome

It's amazing. It sounds like you've developed a really rich program, and I'm curious about how it's been received, what kind of feedback you've gotten from the people that you've trained in the hospital.

Elissa Larkin

Thank you. Yeah, every cohort I end with direct feedback from the trainees about the program, all aspects: “What went well? What could be better? Anything else we should add?” And one thing that consistently people have said is that the practice is really valuable. We have actually partnered with community members with aphasia. I've neglected to mention this is all over Zoom at this point, which makes it accessible for people from all parts of the hospital and for our community members.

So the practice, rather than role plays with each other, our community members with aphasia, Zoom in and have conversations and give direct feedback. “You did a good job speaking slowly.” “Could you write more for me?” Things like that. And the clinicians have said that is not only really helpful, it helps them build confidence, and it feels really meaningful. And the community members have been so generous with their time, and they have also said they feel like not only is it fun for them, they also find it meaningful to feel like they're training clinicians who are going to work with other people with communication disabilities and maybe make things more accessible for them. So that's been, I think, a really important part of the program, and I'm so thankful that our community members are always up for being a part of it and giving their time that way and expertise for that matter.

Lyssa Rome

What about other examples of how this has played out for the people who you've trained?

Elissa Larkin

Yeah, I have to say, clinicians have shared some really powerful examples of what this has changed in their practice, and some of them might seem kind of simple like I had an occupational therapist inpatient who worked on a primarily neuro rehab unit, mainly with stroke survivors. She told me about this bathing session that she had with a patient with aphasia, and she was so excited to show me all the communication supports that she had created ahead of time, to walk the patient through what to expect, what the steps were, what her expectations were, to leave room for questions, all ahead of time. And then she said they had this extremely successful session.

I said, “What made it so successful? What did that look like for you?” And she said, “Well, the patient did what I knew she could do. The communication didn't get in the way. It felt really accurate. And it was an important piece of her getting ready to go home, which was also really important to this individual. And so that, to me, was really meaningful.”

I've actually had some prosthetist orthotists join the program as well. So, you know, they're making braces for patients and other kinds of things, and they have had some great stories about just really getting it right. One clinician said that he was working with this patient with aphasia, and he was writing all these options down, and he brought all these examples to show her, and he said she was really particular. She was a very put-together person, and she ended up choosing this, like, hot pink brace. And when he confirmed, like, “This is what you want?” She was just all lit up like, “Yes, this is exactly what I want!” You know, that is meaningful in his practice. He was so proud and excited to tell me that.

And actually, a couple of other people from the P&O department did the program last year, and this year, they're working on making the documents that they use in their department more accessible. So they've taken this on. Their manager totally is supporting it, and I'm kind of just supporting them. So to me, those are the signs that make me feel really hopeful, that the champion part of it is working. You know, I wouldn't even know that those barriers are there. That's not my field of practice, and for them to not only identify these issues, but start to feel like they can address them and improve things for their patients, and then have examples where it works. It's just been really exciting and rewarding.

Lyssa Rome

It's amazing to think about, sort of the ripples out from the work that you're doing within the hospital, and then also, ultimately, to patients and people who are in very vulnerable… I mean, you give the OT example choosing a brace, those experiences are so central for patients, and to be able to have such a broad impact by training people from so many different departments is really amazing.

Elissa Larkin

Thank you. And you know, just listening to how you put that, it made me think about again, some of the ethics terms that now bubble up for me are dignity. There was so much dignity preserved there and even uplifted for that patient during her bathing session. The personhood. The autonomy. And getting your brace exactly how you want it—if you're going to wear this every day, that's a big deal. I think, to be seen, to feel like you can advocate for yourself and your own care, because you're working with a provider who knows how to accommodate your needs.

I think in our field, there have been leaders who have planted these seeds of talking about communication ramps, really looking at the parallels between physical accommodations and communication accommodations. That's another thing in the Communication Champions program: Clinicians have said, “That really makes sense.”

A PT shared—she practiced in day rehab—and she said, “One day, it just dawned on me that the paper and the marker that is my patient's least restrictive device for communication, right? I would never ask them to walk without their walker. Why am I asking them to have a conversation with me without their tools?” And those are the times where it feels like, “Okay!”

I love that word ripples. I feel like there's a lot of empowerment happening in all directions. That's my hope, that the clinicians feel empowered, that when patients are interacting with providers who have this knowledge and these skills, and it's that the patients feel empowered too. And we know that it's complex. It requires ongoing adaptation. And so I hope that in talking about communication partnership, when clinicians are using the knowledge they have and they're trying, patients can partner with them. That's what we want. That's how we want it to be. You know, we're working for them. And we're working together, hopefully.

Lyssa Rome

Well, as you're describing that, it becomes so clear to me how ethics, how justice, and how access, are so deeply intertwined. So it's really clear that in both the ethics programs, and your work as a bioethicist in your hospital system, and the Communication Champions program, you're implementing those ideas, those sort of foundational values that I also hope are central to my practice. I mean, I think it's definitely something that I aspire to. And it's really impressive to me how you've put them into practice.

Elissa Larkin

Oh, thank you. I aspire to them too. Every day. All of this is nothing if not humbling, which is where we want to operate from anyway. Yeah, I'm thinking of one more little story. It might make me emotional to talk about it.

Lyssa Rome

Take your time.

Elissa Larkin

Yeah, thank you. It's a happy story. It's just… We have a program in our hospital for patients with locked-in syndrome, who’ve had brain stem strokes and the majority of whom are totally dependent communicators, mainly communicating with their eye movements, right? And I got to meet a patient with locked-in syndrome somewhat recently, who had a complex situation where he hadn't appointed a power of attorney for finances, and at that point he really needed someone to be able to help with those things.

We were asked to do a capacity assessment to see if he could appoint someone. Normally, we don't actually do financial power of attorney, but this was a disability rights issue. It was like, if we can't do it here, then he's not going to probably have another opportunity where the resources are there to complete it. So I partnered with a neuropsychologist who hadn't worked with people with locked-in syndrome before, but she was very familiar with the assessment process, and we were really careful about how we planned the questions and the structure and the flow to give this person his best shot at demonstrating capacity.

In the beginning, I was doing all of the communication with him and the spelling and the choices. But the neuropsychologist—we met with him three times—and by the third time, she held the board and was asking questions directly and helping spell things out. She actually, at times, I think, had a better angle for his eye movements. And it was just, he was just right on. They were in sync, and he totally demonstrated capacity. He indicated who he wanted, and had very clear rationale.

And so when we told him it was clear and he was going to be able to complete this and our team would help him do this and put it in place, he just let out the biggest sigh. And you know, in terms of communication that said so much. You can imagine all the other ways that could have gone, and what an impact that would have on that individual's life, who absolutely deserves to be able to choose who they want to help was such an important thing. And you know, we thanked him for working so hard to communicate with us and being so patient as we learned his communication system. And then he also had a smile, like he was able to just do this spontaneous smile.

You know, those two pieces of communication were just really meaningful. And after a debriefing with my colleague, she said she felt like she learned so much. She feels empowered to use communication accommodations, to reach out if she's working with someone who has different needs and she isn't sure. And that's how I want it to be. That's what I hope for. I hope everybody in the hospital, at some point, has access to training like this. Our security guards, they totally want to be able to do the same thing, right? Admissions folks. Everybody, wants to get to know our patients, to communicate with them in an equitable way. And I do think that having access to training is the answer, and having it tailored.

Lyssa Rome

What a moving story and how fulfilling that must be—both for the clinicians in other disciplines and SLPs too, I guess, who have learned how to provide access. It makes me wonder, as you think about what you've learned from having done this work, what would you like listeners to take away from having heard about the work that you've been doing?

Elissa Larkin

Well, my first thought is you're probably already doing more than you are giving yourself credit for. I think advocacy is kind of built into our practice in some beautiful ways. And I also think everyone should maybe do that same exercise that the Aphasia Institute folks suggested: thinking about the communication environment where we work, and thinking about the systems that are in place, and where there might be opportunities to offer our expertise.

I think that there have been a number of times where colleagues of mine have been so receptive. And, you know, I think there's a lot of trust already between us, the folks that we work with. And so I think if we can find opportunities to offer communication, accommodation, mentorship.

I also think the other piece that I've learned that is so important is—and this is in literature, too, I just have found it to be very true in practice—is tailoring. I have done communication partner training for our campus security, campus safety team. And I used very different examples for them. I talked to them first about when this comes up, what it looks like. It's got to be relatable. And I think that part of the brilliance of the SCA model and other models too, that include role play, is giving people a chance to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who has a communication disability makes all the difference. Then you get it, “Oh, that was really hard. And if I can make that easier for someone, I want to.” And then you got them. Then they're listening. Then they want those strategies. They want to learn the accommodations.

So I think offering our expertise, tailoring, and I think also, thinking about what scope feels reasonable. I talked about teaching people to fish. I also think giving people fish is really important—don't get me wrong.

I worked with a chaplain team also, and one of the chaplains said to me… I asked him, “Do you have any advice if colleagues of mine want to provide communication training to their spiritual care colleagues?” And he said, “You know, I would start with a shared patient and one chaplain, and then get that person to convince their colleagues to listen. And, you know, maybe you can give them some certain tools, or you could just even meet with them.” But I think all those small steps of bridge-building can be really impactful.

I've been thinking a lot about just disability rights history, and I think communication access is at a certain point in its evolution in terms of awareness. And I think all of us can contribute to raising that. It's going to take time and just a whole lot of us chipping away as we can, growing, learning, along with people with lived experiences, and advocating together.

Lyssa Rome

Well I hate to stop the conversation, but that's a really great note to end on. I just really appreciate your sharing these really powerful stories with us, knowing that, I think clinicians in a really broad variety of clinical settings can take some of this and put it into practice so that we can also bring justice and access to the people that we're working with.

Elissa Larkin

Thank you. I agree.

Lyssa Rome

Elissa Larkin, it has been so great to talk with you. Thank you so much for sharing all of this with us.

Elissa Larkin

It's been a pleasure to talk with you, Lyssa. Thank you for the opportunity.

Lyssa Rome

And thanks also to our listeners. For the references and resources mentioned in today's show, please see our show notes. They're available on our website, www.aphasiaaccess.org. There, you can also become a member of our organization, browse our growing library of materials, and find out about the Aphasia Access Academy. If you have an idea for a future podcast episode, email us at [e-mail]. Thanks again for your ongoing support of Aphasia Access. For Aphasia Access Conversations. I'm Lyssa Rome.

• SRAlab Center for Aphasia Research and Treatment link: https://www.sralab.org/research/labs/center-aphasia-research-treatment
• SRAlab Donnelley Ethics Program link: https://www.sralab.org/services/donnelley-ethics-program
• Leora Cherney was awarded the 2023 Aphasia Access (inaugural) Sandra O. Glista Mentorship Award (alongside the amazing Robin Pollens)
• Aphasia Institute Supported Conversation for Adults with Aphasia (SCA) training
• Dr. O'Halloran's article: O'Halloran, R., Grohn, B., & Worrall, L. (2012). Environmental factors that influence communication for patients with a communication disability in acute hospital stroke units: a qualitative metasynthesis. Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation, 93(1), S77-S85.
• Dr. O'Halloran's related tool: https://www.pluralpublishing.com/publications/inpatient-functional-communication-interview-screening-assessment-and-intervention
• The Communication Environment Survey Tool (CEST)
• The CEST is Copyrighted. You are welcome to use, copy and distribute the CEST for clinical and/or academic purposes, with the following restrictions:

1. You may not retitle the tool or remove or obscure the SRAlab name or logo, copyright notation or the reference information.
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