| Multicultural Task Force
In 2007, the National Aphasia Association formed the Multicultural Task Force in order to accomplish the following Mission and Goals:
The mission of the National Aphasia Association is to educate the public to know that the word aphasia describes an impairment of the ability to communicate, not an impairment of intellect. The NAA makes people with aphasia, their families, support systems, and health care professionals aware of the resources to recover lost skills to the extent possible, to compensate for skills that will not be recovered and to minimize the psychosocial impact of the language impairment.
The NAA envisions a society in which aphasia is a commonly understood word and where there are resources available for educating people with aphasia, their families, health professionals, and the public on how people with aphasia can reclaim their quality of life.
Aphasia is a condition, usually acquired as a result of stroke or other brain injury, which impairs the ability to use or comprehend words, but does not affect intelligence. As a result of their difficulty communicating, people with aphasia may experience great isolation and frustration in their daily lives, which is often made worse by the lack of information that they receive about their condition. Many people are never even told that their difficulty communicating has a name - "aphasia" - and the majority leave the health care system without referrals to resources in their own communities. People with aphasia must be accorded the same rights as other patients to full and adequate medical treatment, insurance coverage, and research regarding their condition. People with aphasia also have the same fundamental rights as other members of society, including the right to the pursuit of happiness and a full and positive quality of life.
Aphasia does not manifest the same way in all languages and the sociocultural environment in which the person with aphasia lives may influence the clinical process.
The mission of the NAA's Multicultural Task Force (MTF) is to enhance the understanding and intervention of aphasia and its consequences in different linguistic and sociocultural environments.
The MTF's mission includes the following goals:
1. To bring together the input from a multidisciplinary cohort of researchers and practitioners as well as people with aphasia to clinical practices.
2. To link research on aphasia in different languages and in individuals from different cultures to clinical practices.
3. To bring together the input from both national and international researchers and practitioners.
4. To collect and disseminate literature on aphasia in different languages ad in individuals from different cultures among researchers, practitioners, and people with aphasia.
5. To be an active resource center for the national and international public.
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