Improving quality of life could be considered the ultimate goal of aphasia rehabilitation. Understanding clients' perspectives of their own quality of life is also crucial for targeting appropriate and effective interventions. Measuring quality of life is also an important outcome measure, crucial for ensuring adequate funding is available for aphasia services. Hence, quality of life has become a significant topic in aphasiology. This special issue of Aphasiology is dedicated to the topic of quality of life in aphasia. The issue includes a number of studies from around the world describing and measuring quality of life in this population. It also contains studies that have developed and evaluated interventions that have addressed quality of life issues in people with aphasia. The issue provides a comprehensive view of quality of life research currently being conducted in aphasiology around the world.

This is the annual published proceedings of the 36th Clinical Aphasiology Conference (CAC). It was held in Ghent, Belgium, and was the first CAC meeting to be held outside North America. As a result, the 2006 CAC attracted a substantial number of submissions from European researchers and clinicians, many of whom had never attended CAC before. Included in this issue are papers that have been peer reviewed and selected from among the papers and posters presented at CAC. Both theoretical and clinical papers relevant to the provision of clinical services to people with aphasia are included.

This special issue of Aphasiology represents the papers accepted for publication which were among those presented at the 34th Clinical Aphasiology Conference, held in Park City Utah in 2004. They have been peer-reviewed and selected by a distinguished group of ad-hoc editorial consultants from among the considerably larger number of papers and posters presented at the meeting itself.