Participants: Recruitment and selection criteria
stroke, post-stroke aphasia, aphasia
STROKE, RECRUITMENT
Clusters were 20 self-selected health regions across Australia recruited through the Speech Pathology Email Chat Google group. Cluster eligibility criteria included provision of aphasia rehabilitation services across the period of intervention; potential clusters were excluded if they were participating in other clinical trials that might conflict with recruitment or intervention. Equal number of clusters from metropolitan and non-metropolitan regions were sampled to cater for any geographical psychology service provision differences, with the aim to recruit 20 people per cluster with post-stroke aphasia. Clusters were randomly allocated in progressive blocks (2 capital, 2 noncapital) by the blinded statistician (A.K.) to either the experimental arm (the ASK program) or the similarly formatted and delivered attention control arm (SSPIP), using a computer-generated random number scheme. Sequential numbers were assigned to each cluster to ensure allocation concealment. Allocation concealment from cluster site staff was not possible as each of the intervention arms had different content. Participants with aphasia, their family, and outcome assessors were blinded to intervention allocation.Sample size calculations were calculated for both primary outcome measures (ALAAll people with aphasia after stroke admitted to the participating health region were eligible to be screened for inclusion. They were diagnosed by a qualified speech pathologist using the Western Aphasia Battery−Revised