Story Structure and Retelling of Narratives by Aphasic and Non-Brain-Damaged Adults

Abstract

Aphasic and non-brain-damaged subjects listened to and retold two narrative stories three times in succession. Both aphasic and non-brain-damaged subjects were affected by story structure—they retold a greater proportion of information units that were central to the story structure than information units that were peripheral to the story structure. Both aphasic and non-brain-damaged subjects increased the amount of information retold across three retellings, although only the increases from Retelling 1 to Retelling 2 were statistically significant. Non-brain-damaged subjects consistently retold slightly more information units than aphasic subjects, but the differences were not statistically significant. In all three retellings, both groups of subjects retold information in the same order that it occurred in the stories.

Measuring the lexical semantics of picture description in aphasia

“…Although methods of analysing the syntactic adequacy of connected speech in aphasia abound (e.g., Berndt et al, 2000;Saffran et al, 1989), there has been relatively little effort to characterise the semantic adequacy of aphasic output, and there is no agreed-upon method to do so. Studies that do address this issue often focus on the cohesion and coherence of discourse (e.g., Christiansen, 1995;Glosser & Deser, 1990), the salience, accuracy and/or completeness of story elements (e.g., Ernest-Baron, Brookshire, & Nicholas, 1987), or the number of informational units, main concepts, or propositions (e.g., Doyle, Goda, & Spencer, 1995). However, because lexical retrieval was the domain of interest here, singleword measures were used.…”

Widening the temporal window: Processing support in the treatment of aphasic language production

“…If narratives are elicited with the same materials both before and after treatment is applied, what appear to be treatment effects may actually represent practice effects for these repeated stories. Interestingly, few studies have addressed this point, and those that have examined the impact of repeated elicitations (e.g., Coelho, Liles, & Duffy, 1990;Ernest-Baron, Brookshire, & Nicholas, 1987) have focused upon information content rather than structural properties of the samples produced. The extended baseline period in the current study, using the same two narratives, is designed to address this issue.…”

Verbal pragmatics following unilateral stroke: Emotional content and valence.

“…LBD and RBD participants demonstrated deficits in pragmatic performance relative to demographically matched normal control participants. Previous literature has shown that discourse structure or information structure is relatively preserved in LBD aphasic individuals (e.g., Berko Gleason et al, 1980; Ernest-Baron et al, 1987; Holland, 1982; Ulatowska et al, 1983) and is reduced in RBD individuals (e.g.,Bloom, Borod, Obler, & Gerstman, 1992, 1993; Delis, Wapner, Gardner, & Moses, 1983; Huber & Gleber, 1982; Joanette et al, 1986). Our data suggest that the picture may be more complex, such that pragmatic features of discourse production interact with discourse content.…”

“…Numerous studies have documented that right-hemisphere brain-damaged (RBD) individuals have deficits in structuring and organizing (e.g., Joanette, Goulet, Ska, & Nespoulous, 1986; Myers, 1994), interpreting (e.g., Kaplan, Brownell, Jacobs, & Gardner, 1990), and inferring from (e.g., Beeman, 1993) the information in narrative and conversational discourse. At the same time, substantial research has indicated that global aspects of discourse production, including certain aspects of pragmatics, are spared in individuals with left-hemisphere lesions (e.g., Ernest-Baron, Brookshire, & Nicholas, 1987; Holland, 1982; Ulatowska,Freedman-Stern, Doyel, Macaluso-Haynes, & North, 1983). Taken together, these results have suggested that the left and right sides of the brain make different contributions to the processing of language for communicative purposes.…”