Does gesture add to the comprehensibility of people with aphasia?

Gesture can convey information co-occurring with and in the absence of speech. As such, it seems a useful strategy for people with aphasia (PWA) to compensate for their impaired speech. To find out whether gestures used by PWA add to the comprehensibility of their communication we looked at the information conveyed in gesture (similar to speech, additional to speech or essential information that is absent in speech), produced by 34 PWA and 5 non-brain damaged participants (NBDP) during semi-structured conversation. There were no significant differences found between PWA and NBDP, or between aphasia types. The total number of gestures and the use of similar gestures correlates with the information PWA can convey in speech. Essential gestures are used in instances of speech break down. These findings suggest that gestures used by PWA may add to the compressibility of their communication and that some PWA may use gesture compensatorily.