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Try saying your full name backwards. Imagine having to work that hard when you order a meal in your favorite restaurant. Aphasia is like that. Imagine going to a foreign country where you recognize only a few words, and speak even fewer. Aphasia is like that.
Aphasia is loss of language abilities, usually after stroke or similar brain injury. In rare cases, it can be an early sign of other progressive neurological disease. In all cases, aphasia steals a person’s words and can make it hard to express ideas verbally or through writing. It can also limit the ability to understand spoken and written words. Aphasia is NOT a loss of intelligence, but makes it difficult for people to use words to show their competence, sense of humor, and identity.
Cowboy Aphasia Camp is offered annually on the OSU-Tulsa campus. This event partners OSU graduate students in the Communication Sciences & Disorders department and people with aphasia for a week of mutual learning. Activities include 1:1 conversational exchanges and computer-based treatment, group communication interactions, and holistic activities such as painting, music, and animal-assisted therapy. You might even catch us dancing, laughing, and telling jokes!
Yes. Those ARE (temporary) tattoos. Anything that gets people talking is fair game! This is a week that gets Neurons Firing!
The National Aphasia Association estimates that close to 2 million people in the U.S. have aphasia. This makes aphasia more common than Parkinson’s disease, but a survey by the NAA in 2020 showed that most people were not familiar with aphasia or ways to help a person who has it.
Your donation to Cowboy Aphasia Camp supports people with aphasia, and the OSU students who are learning to help them in their recovery journey. The funds are used for supplies, food (campers and students are hungry!), and other camp expenses. You are helping people with aphasia regain their identity, and you are helping OSU produce outstanding speech-language pathologists! Thank you for joining our team in this way!
One dollar for each camp year so far and one to grow on. Your donation will provide supplies our grad students will use during camp.
Campers practice some famous quotes during camp. Your donation will cover the cost of a boogie board (like a dry erase board, but better!) for a camper to use during camp, and keep when camp ends.
Words that sound alike can be used as tools to improve language skills. At camp, we mess around with words a lot! Your gift at this level will purchase new language-based games to keep Neurons Firing!!
Did you know that music can help promote recovery of speech and language after a stroke? Cowboy Aphasia Camp uses music for this purpose. Your gift at this level will help fund purchase of a keyboard for the "campground"!
Your donation covers a big chunk of the cost of camp t-shirts. You can't have a camp without t-shirts. They raise awareness of aphasia all year long and help our campers tell their camp stories.
Everyone has a story. People with aphasia are no different, and camp is a way to help them tell others about their recovery journey. Your donation at this level will sponsor a portion of the expense to bring a nationally-known individual with aphasia to Cowboy Aphasia Camp, and give our campers another story to share.