Conversation analysis as a dependent measure in communication therapy with four individuals with aphasia

Maintenance of speech in Parkinson’s disease: The impact of group therapy

“…175 The researcher's influence in supporting the contribution of the participants was unsurprising given the training that speech-language pathologists receive in facilitating turn-taking for people with communication disorders. 301 Griffiths and colleagues 182 found that people with PD were observed to overlap in the middle of the conversational partner's turn. Speech initiation difficulties and cognitive slowing were put forward as possible explanations.…”

“…Another example of quantification of conversational features was provided by the work of Boles 301,303 in his studies of dyads involving a person with aphasia. Contribution of words to conversation, words per utterance, and self-repair behaviour for people with aphasia and their communication partners were reported as counts per minute of speaking time.…”

“…300 The use of quantification alongside CA may provide descriptive evidence of conversational change post-treatment. 300,301,303,306,307 The feasibility of quantifying overlap, repair, talking time, and topic setting in the communication disordered population has been established. 288,300,302,303,310 However, in the initial exploration of conversational behaviours, the inductive nature of CA allows for new phenomena to be observed 291 and for problems in interaction to be revealed by participant reaction rather than researcher judgement.…”

“…The communication partners' speaking rate was slower and their repair behaviour and total word count were reduced. 301,303 Similarly, Ferguson 302 used counts of the features of turn taking and repair to describe the conversations of people with aphasia. Two people with aphasia conversed with each other, an unfamiliar clinician, a lay speaker, and a familiar clinician.…”

“…In the speech-language pathology literature, there are also exploratory studies that have compared conversational behaviours across participants, across conversational partners, following intervention, and over time. 288,[300][301][302] Behaviours of the participants within the conversations, such as repair and contribution of words to the conversation, were identified and frequency counts of the behaviour of interest presented. 300,301,303 Rutter, 300 in a pilot study of three participants with multiple sclerosis, explored the combined use of qualitative and quantitative measures in describing the conversation of people with dysarthria.…”