This paper describes the narrative discourse abilities of a group of severely traumatically brain injured (TBI) speakers at two intervals post-injury. At initial assessment (between 3 and 6 months post-injury) a group of 26 TBI speakers were assessed using a picture description task. The performance of two control groups was also examined. The ®rst control group was comprised of 26 non-TBI orthopaedically injured speakers and the second control group comprised 26 university students. These control groups were selected in order to examine the possibility that premorbid demographic factors can in¯uence the discourse skills of TBI speakers. Measures of interest included content (number and type of story grammar elements present), communicative e¬ciency (syllables per story grammar element) and pragmatic performance (errors on a modi®ed version of Damico's Clinical Discourse AnalysisÐthe CDA-M). The measure which most clearly separated the performance of the TBI speakers from that of the controls on an initial assessment was the CDA-M. At follow-up, a mean of 2 years 10 months post-injury, 24 of the TBI speakers were seen for review. Results at follow-up revealed signi®cant improvement over time and the performance of the TBI speakers could no longer be diåerentiated from that of the orthopaedic patients included in the initial study. The ®ndings are discussed with respect to the implications for narrative discourse sampling and measurement, in relation to severity and chronicity of brain injury.