Game of chance

When Guillermina Noel completed her thesis project for her MFA (Design) last fall, her innovative project was profiled in Folio, which generated attention from the media. Noel, a graphic designer, had completed an exhaustive research project aimed at helping aphasics to communicate.

Consulting more than a dozen international experts on aphasia, a condition caused by strokes or other brain injury that diminishes a person's ability to communicate, Noel designed a board game that incorporates colours, letters and other symbols to help aphasics use the limited communications skills they possess.

Some aphasics can speak but are unable to read; others can't figure out a word unless they trace its letters on the palm of their hand. Some patients are trapped forever - intellectually intact, but unable to communicate in any way.

Noel designed the game, called Questions and Answers, for her father, who suffered a stroke and now has a form of aphasia. The game asks a series of questions, at varying degrees of difficulty, based on people, places and events familiar to the patient - in this case, Noel's own father.

John Toporowksi was watching the evening news when a feature on Noel's research played across the screen. Toporowksi, a teacher at the Centennial Centre for Mental Health and Brain Injury in Ponoka, south of Edmonton, was intrigued. He and his colleagues work with aphasics and Toporowksi thought Noel's research could be adapted for them.

"I saw it as a potentially really valuable tool we can provide families with. This is a centre of excellence in brain injury and providing those resources for families is a big part of what we strive to do," said Toporowksi.

Noel was invited to Ponoka to give a talk on design and aphasia, and some of her expertise was put to work almost immediately.

"She sees aphasia through a designer's perspective, seeing the details on how the person would see different-sized text, the colour of different cards those visual cues we take for granted or didn't even think of," he said. "I sort of thought 'Gee, yeah, that makes sense' and it is something we have changed in our practice as well. We have changed font size and styles in our instructional materials and included some colour coding."

"We applied that insight and creativity to our own situation and it was a neat way to improve what we are doing . . . it is interesting how different disciplines can feed off each other. Two minds are better than one. You get two different ways of looking at it. We looked at it with an educational hat and she looked at it from a designer's point of view."

Noel is delivering a new prototype of the game, produced at her expense, to the school. The questions in this version use names of the school's teachers and activities. And it includes a new level of questions. One, for example, asks if a Canadian would rather eat donuts, chili beans or a chocolate bar.

"There is no correct answer, because it is really asking them what they prefer. It makes room for the patient with aphasia to answer, because they are Canadians and they can answer it. It is more about the patient than about the impairment and that is very important," said Noel, who's excited about the collaboration.

"I am really happy to work with them. They are very sensitive. They understand what I am trying to do and how to use the game and they know the game is not going to make the person with aphasia speak again but that it is going to facilitate interaction," she added.

The plan is for the school to use the game for one month. Then, Noel will meet with school teachers and staff to evaluate its effectiveness.