By Pat Healy

For the Journal

     Jerry Kaplan has dedicated over 25 years to teaching adults with speech impediments and neurological impairments how to speak. Now with a new movie called "After Words," which he made with Director Vincent Straggas, he hopes to teach the world about these patients and their difficulties.

     The particular impairment that "After Words" explores is called aphasia. Usually the result of a stroke or brain injury, aphasia affects one’s ability to use and comprehend words. The documentary paints pained portraits and light-hearted sketches of what it is like to be aphasic.

     In the film Dr. Martha Taylor Sarno, founder of the National Aphasia Association says that many people misinterpret aphasics to be either stupid or crazy, which is often not the case. Kaplan said one of the reasons why he wanted to make this film was to correct that misperception.

     "Aphasia really hasn’t received the attention or resources that it deserves," he says, "much in the same way that strokes have not received as many resources as they deserve given their impact on the population."

     Many of the people profiled in "After Words" are from Aphasia Community Group, a local support group Kaplan put together in 1990 when he was working at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Center. He is currently a speech pathologist at Mount Auburn Hospital.

     In the film a man identified as Leonard spends almost twenty seconds trying to pronounce the words to describe how he felt when he initially recovered from his stroke to the confusion of aphasia.

     "I thought I was dead because I was unable to speak," he says, each word a short burst of syllables strung together with long pauses.

     The viewer then learns that Leonard has taken to writing poetry since his stroke, because it is easier for him to communicate with the patience of paper. Leonard’s daughter explains that although she was initially saddened by her father’s condition, she was proud of him and grateful for the beautiful speeches he writes for her on momentous occasions.

     Kaplan, a Somerville resident, says producing this documentary was the next logical artistic step for him after putting together a showcase afternoon of theatre and music a few years ago at Boston University called "Faces of Aphasia." The event featured performances and speeches from people living with aphasia such as Tony Award-winning Julie Harris, Academy Award winning Patricia Neal and renowned mezzo-soprano Jan Curtis. The latter two also appear in "After Words."

     Neal discusses how it has not been easy to re-learn how to speak.

     "A sense of humor, if you have it, helps a great deal," she says fluently. "Happily I’m stubborn. I refuse to be beaten."

Curtis, whose speaking words do not flow as well, discusses how frustrating it is to live with aphasia.

     "I wish that I so much better but I can’t," she struggles to say. "I wish I had the brain function so much better."

     However, when Curtis opens her mouth to sing, she is at no loss for words. Singer Bobby McFerrin also appears in the film, talking about his father Robert, who suffers from aphasia, but can also communicate in song. Kaplan discusses this phenomenon.

     "Music seems to be a right hemisphere function of the brain," he says. "For many people with aphasia, the left hemisphere is the one that has had the stroke and the right one is undamaged. In Jan Curtis and Robert McFerrin and others the right hemisphere is sort of managing things."

     What does Kaplan do to help these people?

     "I’m trying to help my patients who may have very little quantities of words available to them be able to expand their repertoire of expressing themselves," he says. "This is not easy. It’s not textbook therapy. It’s not something you can just give a patient a worksheet to do and say, ‘okay, I’ll check it next week.’ You really have to take stock of their environment, their needs, their family members and their daily life."

     In the support group, aphasics discuss issues that are important to them without the impatience of a world that doesn’t understand the impairment. The Aphasia Community Group allows them to practice speaking with confidence, which usually helps in their struggle to improve their speech.

     For his work with aphasics Kaplan was honored by the American Heart Association with a Community Conscience Award at the end of last month. And shortly after "After Words" premiered to an audience of 800 at the Wang Center. Kaplan is currently looking for other opportunities to show "After Words" to spread awareness about aphasia.

     "I have always believed that the arts can serve as a bridge to community awareness and personal fulfillment," he says, expressing hopes that the documentary will be picked up on cable or public television.

     "We’ve also already gotten some interest from medical and healthcare distribution companies for the project," he says. "I also have a dream that I would like to submit it to the Academy because I think it’s a documentary that has a powerful message."