ABSTRACT

Our ability to communicate appropriately in interpersonal situations is fundamental to successful negotiation of everyday life and provides the medium through which we build and maintain personal relationships. Thus, social communication brings with it many challenges across psychosocial outcome domains for adults with acquired neurological disorders. In particular, evidence supports the negative impact of social communication impairments on the development and maintenance of friendships (Paterson and Stewart, 2002; Shorland and Douglas, 2010) and intimate partnerships (Bracy and Douglas 2005; Grawburg et al., 2013; Pozzebon et al., 2016), the achievement of success in education, training and work environments (Douglas et al., 2016; Meulenbroek and Turkstra, 2015; Rietdjik et al., 2013), and integration within the community more generally (Struchen et al., 2011). Social communication is not a unitary phenomenon; rather, it is an interactive and changing phenomenon reflecting the composite result of a complex interplay between numerous individual factors and multiple contextual parameters. In this chapter we focus on the management of social communication problems in the context of acquired neurological disorders in adulthood. Our aim is to provide the reader with principles and recommendations that are grounded in current evidence and effectively guide practice.