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

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 reall