ABSTRACT

Purpose: The present pilot investigation sought to examine the potential of Snapchat to be used as a social exchange tool and to identify the types of information individuals with aphasia would share through this picture-based, multi-modality application. Methods: Thirteen individuals with aphasia were involved in a two-day trial of Snapchat at an aphasia camp given a group training and ongoing access to volunteer support. Quantitative measures included frequency counts and use of text and/or drawing functions. Qualitative outcomes used open and axial coding methods to characterize communication intent. These were triangulated through multiple coders, multiple rounds of consensus coding, and three coding schemes. Results: Participants successfully used the Snapchat application to generate 174 total posts, all of which used images and some included text, drawing, or multiple modalities. Three coding schemes emerged, which characterized the intent of post exchanges. Conclusions: Snapchat appears to be a feasible tool to foster social exchange among individuals with aphasia, when given guided, incremental learning, and troubleshooting supports. Individuals with aphasia, given no constraints on what to post, demonstrated their communication intent through the images of people and interactions they exchanged. Availability of scaffolded, incremental supports and ongoing troubleshooting for exploring this picture-based, social networking application appears to be important to successful use. Individuals with aphasia can share what matters to them through images, augmented with text, drawings, or other multi-modal inputs.