The purpose of the present research was to examine the influence of cognitive processes on discourse global coherence ability measured across different discourse tasks and collected from younger (n = 40; 20–39 y.o.) and older (n = 40; 70–87 y.o.) cognitively healthy adults. Study participants produced oral language samples in response to five commonly used discourse elicitation tasks and they were analyzed for maintenance of global coherence. Participants also completed memory and attention measures. Group differences on the global coherence scale were found for only one type of discourse – recounts. Across discourse elicitation tasks the lowest global coherence scores were found for recounts compared to the other discourse elicitation tasks. The influence of cognitive processes on maintenance of global coherence differed for the two age groups. For the younger group, there were no observed significant relationships. For the older group, cognitive measures were related to global coherence of stories and procedures.

OBJECTIVE: The study goal was to determine whether clonidine treatment of neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) would result in a better neurobehavioral performance compared with morphine.METHODS: This pilot study prospectively enrolled infants $35 weeks' gestational age admitted for treatment of NAS. After informed consent was obtained, infants were randomized to receive morphine (0.4 mg/kg per day) or clonidine (5 mg/kg per day) divided into 8 doses. A 25% dose escalation every 24 hours was possible per protocol (maximum of 1 mg/kg per day for morphine and 12 mg/kg per day for clonidine). After control of symptoms, the dose was tapered by 10% every other day. Clinical staff monitored infants by using Finnegan scoring. Masked research staff administered the NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale (NNNS) at 1 week and at 2 to 4 weeks after initiation of treatment and the Bayley Scales III, and Preschool Language Scale IV, at 1-year adjusted age. Analyses included descriptive statistics, repeated measures analysis of variance, and Wilcoxon tests.RESULTS: Infants treated with morphine (n = 15) versus clonidine (n = 16) did not differ in birth weight or age at treatment. Treatment duration was significantly longer for morphine (median 39 days) than for clonidine (median 28 days; P = .02). NNNS summary scores improved significantly with clonidine but not with morphine. On subsequent assessment, those receiving clonidine had lower height of arousal and excitability (P , .05). One-year motor, cognitive, and language scores did not differ between groups.CONCLUSIONS: Clonidine may be a favorable alternative to morphine as a single-drug therapy for NAS. A multicenter randomized trial is warranted. WHAT'S KNOWN ON THIS SUBJECT:Increased central adrenergic activity occurs with opiate withdrawal. Clonidine is an effective drug as an adjunct to morphine in the treatment of neonatal abstinence syndrome. It is unclear whether clonidine is effective as single-drug therapy.WHAT THIS STUDY ADDS: Clonidine, a a 2 -adrenergic agonist, seems to be as effective as morphine when used as a single-drug therapy for neonatal abstinence syndrome. Its administration results in improvement in neurobehavioral performance.

Background: Assessing narrative discourse production in persons with aphasia has long challenged clinicians seeking to improve functional outcomes. Fortunately, the development of single picture or picture sequence stimuli has enabled clinicians to quantify aspects of elicited narrative discourse production in a clinical context. However, also needed for the analysis of the narrative discourse of individuals with aphasia are performance data for adults without brain damage. Such comparative data of both younger and older adults would considerably extend the clinical usefulness of discourse tasks that incorporate picture stimuli. However, elicited narrative discourse samples are only valuable as assessment tasks if the procedure yields samples of similar quality for an individual over time. Aims: The main objectives of this investigation were (a) to characterise the quality of the discourse narratives of non-brain-damaged (NBD) adults, examining the effects of stimulus types on their performance; (b) to compare the proportion of main events conveyed by younger and older NBD adults on the elicited narrative task, and (c) to estimate the test± retest reliability of these tasks with each group of participants. Methods & Procedures:A total of 40 neurologically intact adults were divided into younger (YG; N = 21) and older (OD; N = 19) groups. Participants attended two sessions, 10±20 days apart. Each time, participants viewed two pictures and two picture sequences (Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993) and told what was going on in the pictures. The language samples of each participant were then evaluated for the proportion of main events included, and test±retest reliability was assessed.Outcomes & Results: The YG group conveyed a significantly larger proportion of main events than the OD group. The main effect for picture stimulus was also significant; participants told significantly more main events in response to sequential versus single picture stimuli, regardless of age. Test±retest results yielded strong, positive correlations between sessions for both groups. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that age does influence performance in elicited narrative discourse. The YG group conveyed more causal links and relationships between the events depicted in the pictures than the OD group. Test±retest results indicate that the measure is stable over time for younger and older adults without brain damage.

No abstract

Aims The goals of the study were (a) to examine the effect of discourse type on lexical diversity by testing whether there are significant differences among language samples elicited using four discourse tasks (procedures, eventcasts, story telling, and recounts); and (b) to assess the extent to which age influences lexical diversity when different types of discourse are elicited. Methods & Procedures A total of 86 cognitively healthy adults participated in the study and comprised two groups – young adults (20–29 years old) and older adults (70–89 years old). Participants completed the discourse tasks and their language samples were analysed using dedicated software (voc-D) to obtain estimates of their lexical diversity. Outcomes & Results A mixed 2 × 4 ANOVA was conducted and followed by an investigation of simple main effects. A lexical diversity hierarchy was established that was similar for both age groups. The study also uncovered age-related differences that were evident when the stimuli were verbally presented but were eliminated when the language samples were elicited using pictorial stimuli. Conclusions Results indicated that lexical diversity is one of the microlinguistic indices that are influenced by discourse type and age, a finding that carries important methodological implications. Future investigations are warranted to explore the patterns of lexical diversity in individuals with neurogenic language disorders and assess the clinical utility of measures of lexical diversity.