Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is scrolling through an iPad and has made efforts to speak as she continues to make impressive progress in her recovery from a gunshot wound, her doctors and her husband said Thursday.

Giffords has "made some attempts" to talk, said husband Mark Kelly, a NASA astronaut, noting she had a tracheotomy which inhibits speech. "I feel she intellectually understands."

"She'll smile at me, she'll do a couple of things … like pat me on the face, she used to do that before," Kelly said in a media briefing on her condition. "I just look in her eyes and can tell" that she recognizes the people around her.