Strong Story Lab

10/22/2026

Aphasia is a language disorder most often caused by stroke. About 1 in 3 stroke survivors live with it, and it affects far more than speaking, listening, reading, and writing. It reaches into relationships, work, and identity. A stroke is a traumatic, life-changing event, and one important part of recovery is making sense of what happened.

At the Strong Story Lab at Central Michigan University, people living with aphasia become storytellers and our clinicians become story coaches. Together we explore who the storyteller was, who they are now, and who they will be in the future. This work is grounded in relationships and connection, with the person at the center.

Graduate students in CMU's speech-language pathology program partner with storytellers in mid-Michigan, across the country, and internationally. Along the way, they learn what it means to truly listen.

This video, part of CMU's Forge the Future campaign, features storyteller Don Spohn and CMU students Ally and Allison. We are deeply grateful to them for sharing their experiences, and to CMU for highlighting this work.

Watch here: https://youtu.be/PAwS9Pp0Kps

09/22/2026

Consider joining our team! We have an opening for a tenure track position at Central Michigan University College of Health Professions.

09/16/2026

🔥 Hot off the press! 🔥

New publication alert from the Strong Story Lab! 📚

"Starting to Feel Like a Clinician: Graduate Student Experiences of Communication Partner Training for People with Aphasia"

Communication Partner Training (CPT) is one of the most evidence-based tools we have for supporting people with aphasia... so why do so many clinicians hesitate to use it? 🤔

In this study, we analyzed written reflections from 79 first-year graduate students across two university programs as they learned CPT through hands-on, course-embedded training. Their reflections revealed something powerful: this kind of teaching doesn't just build skills, it shifts how future clinicians see people with aphasia and how they see themselves as emerging professionals.

Three themes emerged: Learning by Design, Starting to Feel Like a Clinician, and Moving Forward, each capturing a piece of that transformation.

Proud to have collaborated on this with fellow Aphasia Institute Research Associates Esther Kim, Aura Kagan, and Nina Simmons-Mackie! 🙌

Read the full article (open access!) here: https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/tlcsd/vol10/iss1/34

Strong, K. A., Kim, E. S., Kagan, A., & Simmons-Mackie, N. (2026). Starting to Feel Like a Clinician: Graduate Student Experiences of Communication Partner Training for People with Aphasia. Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders, 10(1).

08/18/2026

🎧 Having autonomy over your recovery is an important aspect of rehabilitation. We hope you'll take a listen to Vivian Fu share about the Take Charge program for recovery from stroke. This program supports people post stroke in having conversations about their identity, hopes, and future and empowers the person living with stroke as the expert in their own life.

🎧 Now available: New Podcast Episode! Katie Strong interviews Dr. Vivian Fu about Taking Charge After Stroke, an innovative, evidence-based program rooted in self-determination. Discover how empowering people to lead their recovery can make a lasting difference. Listen today 👉️ https://aphasiaaccess.libsyn.com/

07/21/2026

We hope you'll join the Stroke Onward Community for this discussion centered around using AI in rehabilitation. Dr. Strong along with SLP colleagues and stroke survivor advocates will engage in a lively discussion! You'll need to register for the event - details are in the original post.

What does it mean to “get your voice back” after stroke – literally and emotionally?

As AI-generated voice technology becomes more widely available, many stroke survivors, carepartners, and clinicians are beginning to explore both its possibilities and its complexities. These tools can create new opportunities for communication and self-expression, while also raising important questions about identity, ethics, access, and emotional readiness.

Join Stroke Onward Co-Founders Debra Meyerson and Steven Zuckerman, alongside speech-language pathologists and other voices in the field, for a thoughtful conversation exploring how AI voice tools are beginning to shape the future of stroke recovery.

📅 Wednesday, Aug 5
⏰7 PM EST / 4 PM PST
🎥 Join here on SOCC: https://circle.strokeonward.org/c/solive/ai-voices-stroke-recovery-promise-pitfalls-and-perspectives

06/19/2026

Ever have a client come in worried about their memory — word-finding trouble, "fogginess" — but they don't screen positive for anything? Not sure what your role is?

It's easy for SLPs to feel like prevention isn't really "our lane." But there are roughly 180,800 SLPs in the U.S. compared to about 5,000 neuropsychologists — we're already seeing these clients. The question is whether we know what to do with them.

This new open-access tutorial — developed by the Joint Committee on Interprofessional Relations between APA and ASHA — walks through exactly this: normal aging vs. MCI vs. subjective cognitive decline, using motivational interviewing to help clients act on brain-health goals, and why up to 45% of dementia cases may be delayed or prevented by addressing modifiable factors we could be discussing in session.

Free to read — useful whether you're seeing clients tomorrow or building next semester's syllabus.

🔗

Purpose: There are significant opportunities for speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to play important roles in the primary and secondary prevent...

06/10/2026

Trish Hambridge and Amy Walters along with others at National Aphasia Synergy are leading a revolution! 👊 This was such an empowering conversation! We hope you'll take a listen. 🎧

✨ June is National Aphasia Awareness Month and that means a meaningful podcast tradition is back🎙️

This latest episode features two inspiring leaders from National Aphasia Synergy (NAS), Trish Hambridge and Amy Walters. NAS is a peer-led nonprofit created by and for people with aphasia. Through connection, technology, and community, NAS is breaking down isolation and building something powerful—what they call Sinergia: where one plus one equals three. 💬✨

Tune in and listen to the conversation today! 👉️ https://buff.ly/ZZOGfyI

06/10/2026

Hope you'll join us tonight!

Link for joining the community on the original post.

Tonight! Stories Together: How Sharing Changes Everything

Join Dr. Katie Strong — speech-language pathologist, researcher, and founder of Strong Story Lab — for an inspiring conversation on how sharing your story can rebuild identity, create connection, and spark advocacy.

🔗 On SOCC: https://circle.strokeonward.org/c/solive/stories-together-how-sharing-changes-everything-ae274d
📅 Wednesday, June 10th
⏰ 7 PM EST / 4 PST

06/09/2026

📢 New publication alert!

"Building boats and riding bikes": a one-year longitudinal study following people with aphasia one year after completing the My Story Project narrative co-construction intervention.

What did participants do in the year after their stories were complete? They built boats. They rode adaptive bikes. They kept their stories close and kept growing.

Key finding: behavioral changes emerged 6–12 months post-intervention, not immediately. Identity work doesn't follow a straight line — and this study shows why that matters for how we evaluate narrative interventions.

🔓 First 50 readers get free access via this eprint link:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/AWZUD38VD4MVHFMCBPYR/full?target=10.1080/02687038.2026.2686781

Aphasia disrupts sense of self and constrains the narrative capacity essential for identity reconstruction. While narrative co-construction approaches show promise for supporting identity developme...

06/06/2026

This week Dr. Strong attended the Saugatuck Institute of Neuropsychological Rehabilitation conference where the topic was Identity and Brain Injury. She presented a poster with her colleague Dr Rianne Brinkman from the Netherlands on a collaborative project from Central Michigan University and Hanze University centered on training speech-language pathology students on how to use stories to help people with aphasia in exploring their Identity.