Validation of linguistic analyses in narrative discourse after traumatic brain injury

Abstract

Narrative discourse tasks are a common feature of assessment and research after traumatic brain injury (TBI) and other types of brain damage. Although stimulus materials and analysis methods have been developed from a variety of theoretical perspectives, many do not challenge cognitive-linguistic skills sufficiently to highlight individual difficulties in assessment after TBI. This study employed a complex story recall task and it aimed to develop analysis methods that were sensitive to differences in recalled narratives and which could be validated against the perceptions of external raters. Twenty TBI adults and 20 matched control subjects were tested and their narratives analysed in terms of six measures (T-units, Noun:Pronoun Ratio, Scenes, Errors, Comments and Tentative Statements). Two groups of raters (one professionally trained, the other not) judged the transcribed narratives on ratings of Content and Clarity. Multiple regression analyses established that two of the linguistic measures in combination predicted ratings of Content, while a further three in combination predicted ratings of Clarity. Cut-off scores were established in order to categorize the TBI and control subjects' performance. The validated measures provide the foundation for analyses of complex narrative as a means of assessment after TBI.

Narrative after traumatic brain injury: A comparison of monologic and jointly-produced discourse

“…Armstrong 2002;Body & Perkins 2004) implies the need to maintain multilevel analysis in studying the discourse of those with TBI (Coelho, Liles & Duffy 1991). As such, exchange structure analysis appears to be a valuable tool for assessing the performance of people with TBI and other groups in interactional discourse.…”

Hemispheric and executive influences on low-level language processing after traumatic brain injury

“…Many researchers (e.g., Kaczmarek, 1987;McDonald, 1992;Ylvisaker & Szekeres, 1989) also believe that the communication deficits may result from underlying cognitive deficits, but the link between the two has not been well studied. There has been a recent focus on discourse processing as the main communication difficulty after TBI (Body & Perkins, 2004). At the level of discourse, it is reasonably easy to imagine that other cognitive processes could be interacting with language such that their impairment could be leading to language impairments.…”

“…As mentioned above, the discourse level is the current focus of research on language deficits in TBI (Body & Perkins, 2004), and is often investigated with conversational samples or narratives.…”

Measuring goodness of story narratives: Implications for traumatic brain injury

“…Difficulty with organizing story narratives is a deficit that emerges consistently following traumatic brain injury (TBI) (Body & Perkins, 2004;Brookshire, Chapman, Song, & Levin, 2000;Coelho, 2002). Story grammar measures that tap the organizational structure of stories (e.g., episodes) have been shown to be sensitive to TBI.…”