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Analyzing the macrolinguistic features of oral discourse produced by people with acquired neurogenic communication disorders

Stephanie Eaton1, Anthony Pak Hin Kong1*, Lauren Bislick-Wilson1 and John Ryalls1
  • 1 University of Central Florida, United States

Introduction. Language sampling and subsequent discourse analysis is a crucial process of assessment and intervention as it provides an effective plan of care for clients with neurologic-based communication disorders. Macrolinguistic feature analysis evaluates an individual’s expressive language on the basis of local cohesion, global coherence, and thematic informativeness (Saffran, Berndt, & Schwartz, 1989; Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993; Kong, 2009; Andreeta, Cantagallo, & Marini, 2012). Over the past several decades, researchers have compiled different ways to analyze discourse production. The aim of this study was to examine the differences of macrolinguistic impairments in discourse production across different neurologically-disordered groups, across genres of discourse tasks, and investigate the correlations between scores of standardized language batteries and differences of macrolinguistic impairments across groups and across discourse genres. Method. Forty participants with fluent aphasia, who sustained a single left-sided stroke, survivors of closed-head traumatic brain injury (TBI), and speakers with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are being recruited from the Central Florida area. Discourse production samples from neurotypical controls have also been acquired from AphasiaBank, a large scale publically accessible database of spoken discourse and co-verbal gestures (MacWhinney, Fromm, Forbes, & Holland, 2011). All participants in the clinical groups were given a set of assessment batteries including the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised (Kertesz, 1982), Oxford Cognitive Screen (Demeyere et al., 2014), Communication Activities of Daily Living-3 (Holland et al., 2018), Main Concept Analysis (Kong, 2009, 2011, 2016, 2018), and Apraxia of Speech Rating 3.0 (Strand, Duffy, Clark, & Josephs, 2014). They were asked to complete three discourse tasks that followed the AphasiaBank protocol: a story telling task using Cinderella (Grimes, 2005), a single picture description task, Cat Rescue (Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993), and a sequential picture description task, Broken Window. Language samples were audio/video recorded and orthographically transcribed to be analyzed. Specifically, transcriptions of language samples were analyzed based upon selected Quantitative Production Analysis (QPA) indices using CLAN, a system developed by Brian MacWhinney for The Child Language Data Exchange System (MacWhinney, 2000; Rochon, Saffran, Berndt, & Schwartz, 2000). Additional microlinguistic measures [e.g., TTR, lexical efficiency measure, time efficiency measure], percentages of local cohesion [e.g., errors of commission and omission, irregular topic switches, misuse of cohesive ties], an average global coherence score [each c-unit was judged on its overt relation to the stimulus and included details of significant importance on a 1-4 scale], and a main concept analysis [each main concept was judged on accuracy and completeness] were conducted on each language sample. Preliminary Results. Preliminary data (Table 1) suggested that participants with MCI performed differently than controls on the features listed. Data will continue to be collected from people with fluent aphasia and survivors of TBI. ANOVAs will be conducted to compare results of macrolinguistic feature analysis, group effect, and genre effect. Post-hoc analyses will be performed to investigate statistical significance between groups and genres of discourse tasks. Pearson’s r correlation coefficients will be conducted to examine the relationship between scores on standardized assessments and macrolinguistic differences across groups and genres of discourse tasks.

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References

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Keywords: macrolinguistic analysis, discourse, Traumatic Brain Injury, Aphasia, Mild Cognitive Impairment

Conference: Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting, Macau, Macao, SAR China, 27 Oct - 29 Oct, 2019.

Presentation Type: Poster presentation

Topic: Eligible for student award

Citation: Eaton S, Kong A, Bislick-Wilson L and Ryalls J (2019). Analyzing the macrolinguistic features of oral discourse produced by people with acquired neurogenic communication disorders. Front. Hum. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2019.01.00013

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Received: 28 Apr 2019; Published Online: 09 Oct 2019.

* Correspondence: Dr. Anthony Pak Hin Kong, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, 32816, United States, akong@hku.hk