Strong Story Lab

05/09/2026

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT! 📣
The 8th Just ASK. Aphasia Stroke Knowledge Annual Aphasia Awareness Conference is tackling the taboo topics that often go unspoken after brain injury, stroke, and aphasia.

Each free virtual session is designed to educate, support, and empower survivors, caregivers, and professionals

📅 Saturdays in June
⏰ 9:00 AM – 11:30 AM EST
💻 Live on Zoom

Join us this June for a powerful and important conversation

➡️Register here: https://uek8uqvh.paperform.co/

04/24/2026

We are so proud of Strong Story Lab founder Dr. Katie Strong, who was recently featured in Thieme's Women in Medicine series! 🎉💙

The feature highlights her newest publication — Building Therapeutic Alliances in Aphasia Rehabilitation: Developing Relational Competencies Through Narrative Practice — now available open access in Seminars in Speech and Language. That means anyone, anywhere can read it for free.

At the heart of this work is a simple but powerful idea: people with aphasia don't lose who they are — they lose the tools to show us. Building real therapeutic relationships, grounded in narrative, is how clinicians help restore that connection.

Check it out and share widely! 🔬

strongstorylab.com

Dr. Katie Strong, CCC-SLP, has spent 30 years believing that people with aphasia have stories worth telling — and that it's the clinician's job to help them tell those stories. An Associate Professor in Communication Sciences and Disorders at Central Michigan University and Co-Editor-in-Chief of Seminars in Speech and Language, Katie's scholarship centers on narrative identity: the idea that aphasia's disruption of language is, at its core, a disruption of self. Her recent work in Seminars in Speech and Language explores how clinicians build genuine therapeutic alliances with people with aphasia — making the case that narrative practice isn't just a clinical tool, but the foundation of a person-centered relationship. She founded the Strong Story Lab at CMU to do this work alongside students, mentoring the next generation of clinicians in qualitative research, life participation, and the art of story co-construction. The lab's signature project, the My Story Project, grew out of her own dissertation and continues to evolve as a way of helping people with aphasia reconstruct identity by telling, sharing, and reclaiming their stories. Katie is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and Tavistock Trust for Aphasia Distinguished Scholar who is convinced that the people she works with are not recipients of care — they are co-creators of it.

Read her article at https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/html/10.1055/a-2845-0475?cooperation=6tZ1OGHLLUD5t8YUBo5H7XI9QBbzOaUPZ2U12EHc

Learn more at strongstorylab.com.

Strong Story Lab

04/23/2026

New episode alert! 🎙️ Strong Story Lab director Katie Strong sits down with Rianne Brinkman (Hanze University of Applied Sciences & University of Humanistic Studies) for Episode 137 of Aphasia Access Conversations: Who Am I Now? Narrative Identity with Rianne Brinkman.

Narrative identity is central to person-centered aphasia care — and this conversation brings that to life with both theory and practice. A must-listen for clinicians, researchers, and anyone passionate about identity-centered work. 👇

🎙️ New Podcast Episode Released!

Tune in to our latest Podcast Episode #137: Who Am I Now? Narrative Identity with Rianne Brinkman, hosted by Katie Strong.

If you've ever felt like there's more to aphasia care than the therapy protocol in front of you, or wondered what identity-centered practice actually looks like in the real world, this
conversation will give you both the framework and the practical insights you need.

Listen today! 👉️ https://buff.ly/WdBKI0x

04/14/2026

📣 New research from the Strong Story Lab!

"Building Therapeutic Alliances in Aphasia Rehabilitation: Developing Relational Competencies Through Narrative Practice" is now published in Seminars in Speech and Language.

This study asked: how do clinicians actually learn to do this work — the relational, person-centered, emotionally present work that narrative intervention requires?

The answer? Not from a textbook. From real relationships.

Eleven graduate story coaches co-constructed life stories with people with aphasia through our "Aphasia! This is Our World" program. Through focus groups, we learned how they grew — from uncertainty to confidence, from clinical distance to authentic partnership.

Four themes tell the story:
💛 Opening Space for Stories
💛 Discovering Their Story
💛 Holding Space for Emotion
💛 Building Story Partnerships

At the Strong Story Lab, we believe story co-construction changes both the storyteller and the listener. This research is the evidence.

Thank you to our story coaches, our storytellers, Allison Conrad, Dr. Barbara Shadden, Dr. Brianne Morrison, the Aphasia Recovery Connection, and Lingraphica for making this work possible.



https://www.thieme-connect.de/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/a-2845-0475

04/08/2026

Shining a spotlight on Allison Strnad! ✨

Allison represented the Strong Story Lab at Central Michigan University College of Health Professions Research Day, presenting on the Virtual My Story Project — a program that uses collaborative storytelling to support identity reconstruction and advocacy in adults with aphasia. We are so proud of you, Allison! 🔥⬆️

04/07/2026

We hope to see you next week at the AphasiaAccess Chautauqua. Dr. Katie Strong and Dr. Erin O'Bryan will be having a conversation about mentoring. The program is filled with other great conversation too! Check out the program in the post below. Central Michigan University College of Health Professions Wichita State University Communication Sciences and Disorders

🎤 Meet our Speakers for the Chautauqua!
Katie Strong, PhD, CCC-SLP, joins the Aphasia Access Chautauqua to speak on Mentoring. Learn more about the full program and register 👉️ https://buff.ly/aXJ4aor

03/24/2026

People with aphasia are powerful teachers. 📖

Today, Don visited Worcester State University to share his stroke and aphasia story with students — the same students who had just completed his Simucase. His wife Karen joined to offer her perspective as a spouse.

Don and Dr. Strong developed this Simucase together so future clinicians can learn what Life Participation Approach to Aphasia looks like in real life, from the people living it.

Gratitude to Dr. Whitney Postman for bringing Don and Karen into her classroom — twice. This is how the field moves forward.

03/16/2026

It's published! 📸❤️

We are so excited to share that "Picturing Quality of Life: Exploring the Perceptions of People Living With Stroke and Traumatic Brain Injury Through Virtual Photovoice" is now out in Qualitative Research in Communication Differences and Disorders — and this one has been a long time coming.

Living with a communication disability after stroke or brain injury touches every part of life — relationships, independence, identity, daily routines, and the ability to simply be understood. Yet the people living that reality are rarely the ones asked to define what quality of life actually means to them. This project set out to change that.

The Picturing Quality of Life Group — seven photographers living with aphasia or cognitive-communication disability following stroke or TBI — are co-authors on this paper because the research belongs to them. They took the photos. They wrote the captions. They chose the themes. They decided how to share their stories with the world. We were fortunate enough to be there alongside them.

A team of talented student researchers served as Photovoice coaches and project managers: Bailey Blaisdell, Rachel Forrester, Chloe Ilacqua, Grace Inch, Maria Jochim, Arya Kurian, Samantha Smith, Callee Catlin, and Jackson Linford. They are now practicing SLPs, and we hope this project lives somewhere in how they work with clients.

Thank you to the full author team — the Picturing Quality of Life Group, Dr. Erin Bush (Florida State University), and Dr. Jackie Hinckley (Nova Southeastern University) — it truly took all of us.

The first 25 readers can download the full article for free here:
👉 - Looks like the free articles are gone! Thanks for all of the interest!

Here is the link to the article https://doi.org/10.3138/qrcdd-2024-0012 If you don't have library access, reach out and we can see what we can do to help you access the article.

And if you want to experience the work the way the photographers intended it — please watch and share their Photovoice display:
🎬 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGZVO1MtyBg

This is what it looks like when research makes space for the people it is about. We are grateful to everyone who made it possible. 📸

People living with aphasia and cognitive-communication disorders share their perspectives on quality of life using photos they took and curated. The project ...

12/07/2025

🔥⬆️ Fire Up Chips! We are excited to see Allison, one of our Strong Story Lab members, featured as she shared her research project on storytelling in aphasia at the College Research Symposium. Allison is pictured in blue presenting her work. Congratulations to Allison, who is graduating this week with her bachelor's degree. Way to go Allison!

11/25/2025

One of the highlights at the The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Centennial Convention was hearing from Trish Hambridge, founder and president of National Aphasia Synergy. Trish shared her lived experience combined with evidence-based science philosophy on using a growth mindset in living successfully with and . Bravo Trish! And to the Topics in Adult Language Disorders leaders who had the wisdom to invite this expert.