Analysing coherence of oral discourse among Cantonese speakers in Mainland China with traumatic brain injury and cerebrovascular accident

Abstract

Purpose: Coherence can reflect subtle language deficits in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and cerebrovascular accident (CVA). This study aimed to investigate whether global and local coherence in Cantonese-speaking adults with CVA and TBI differ from non-brain-injured (NBI) speakers. Factors contributing to the coherence ratings and impacts of elicitation tasks on coherence were examined.Method: Two clinical groups with fluent aphasia (7 CVA and 11 TBI) and 18 controls matched in age and education, who were Cantonese speakers living in China participated. Language samples of single and sequential picture description and storytelling were elicited, and subsequently analysed on global and local coherence, content sequence, and informativeness.Result: TBI speakers had impaired global and local coherence, while CVA speakers had poor global coherence. Sequence of main events produced by the three groups correlated significantly with global coherence. Attention and visuospatial skills were also significantly related to global coherence in both clinical groups. Finally, impaired language integrity was associated with problems of local coherence. Conclusion:The results were consistent with previous studies. Linguistic deficits of coherence in discourse in the two clinical groups and possible impacts of elicitation tasks on the cognitive demands and coherence ratings were discussed.

Proposing a quick, objective, comprehensive analysis of impaired spoken discourse in post-stroke aphasia

“…In particular, with reference to three selected narrative tasks in the AphasiaBank protocol [11], we constructed a set of task-specific normative data and scoring criteria that can be directly applied clinically. Unlike most previous studies of macro-linguistic deficits in aphasia that relied on subjective ratings [e.g., 15,16], we believe the present comprehensive analysis is more objective but still time efficient. We argue that the use of quantification-derived numeric val-ues (in contrast to subjective ratings such as those in the NAP system [10]) is a more refined way to ensure sensitivity of this proposed analysis.…”

“…1. The use of ten unimpaired speakers followed the methodology reported in Kong, Lau, and Cheng [16] (n = 10) for establishing normative data as the basis of analysis.…”

Measuring pragmatic competence of discourse output among Chinese-speaking individuals with traumatic brain injury

“…A sample transcript of a language sample ('Cat Rescue') in T-units: For example, 有／一／隻／狗／追／佢 (Kong et al, 2020) viii. Words per T-unit Total number of words within a single T-unit.…”

“…(Continued) Global coherence refers to the ability to organize propositions into a discourse with respect to an overall goal, theme, or topic (Kong et al, 2020). Errors of global coherence included the production of utterances that may be tangential, conceptually incongruent with the story, propositional repetitions, or simple fillers (Andreetta et al, 2012).…”

“…However, proper analyses of the final results can help reveal the comprehensive nature of pragmatic disorders, ranging from areas of speech acts (such as topic management or turn-taking) to inter-sentential cohesion and coherence (Cummings, 2009). Kong et al (2020) have recently reported impaired global and local coherence in Chinesespeaking TBI survivors. Specifically, two groups of speakers with neurogenic communication disorders, including one group of stroke survivors with aphasia and another group of individuals with TBI, provided language samples of single-and sequential picture description and storytelling.…”