It\u2019s a Thursday morning in late April and the sound of excited voices and laughter are emanating from the large kitchen at the Aphasia House. Gathered inside are a small army of graduate students, clad in matching black polos embroidered with the name of their program: Communication Sciences and Disorders. They are all studying to become speech-language pathologists.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s graduation day. But not for the students.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a commencement ceremony for their patients. In this case, four adults with aphasia \u2014 a communication disorder that can occur suddenly following a stroke or head injury but may also develop slowly from a brain tumor or a progressive neurological disease. June is Aphasia Awareness Month.<\/p>\n
One of these four patients is Kyle Burke, a constantly smiling 25-year-old who seemingly knows everyone in the room.<\/p>\n
He arrives at the ceremony in an orange Clemson University T-shirt. In May 2020, he was enrolled as a student and celebrating the completion of final exams and making the dean\u2019s list when the pandemic brought him back home. It was there that a skateboarding accident would leave him with a traumatic brain injury and an inability to speak, write or understand language.<\/p>\n
His family found the Aphasia House at UCF<\/a> \u2014 one of just a few of its kind in the country and known for its intensive and highly-personalized treatment.<\/p>\n \u201cKyle\u2019s a young guy and I just thought, ‘what a perfect environment,’ \u201d recounts his mother, Deborah Burke, in an early interview<\/a>. \u201cThis is what he needs. He needs to be out with a bunch of people in a college environment. And he was excited.\u201d<\/p>\n In October of 2021, Burke began his first delivery of the six-week program at UCF.<\/p>\n On April 21, 2023, he\u2019s completed the program for what marks his eighth and final time.<\/p>\n