Date of Completion
8-24-2018
Embargo Period
9-5-2020
Advisors
Jennifer Mozeiko, Carl Coelho, Tammie Spaulding
Field of Study
Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences
Degree
Master of Arts
Open Access
Campus Access
Abstract
Aphasia is a communication disorder that impacts all modalities of language and ranges in degree of severity. Individuals with mild aphasia, who by definition have less severe aphasia, still face many obstacles while communicating. Unfortunately, identifying and isolating the deficits of people with mild aphasia is understudied. Discourse analysis is one method that has been proven to be sensitive and reliable, however it has been reported by practicing clinicians as too time consuming to be practical. The aim of our paper is to investigate the relationship between informativeness and efficiency (features of discourse) as a function of Correct information units (CIUs) and verb usage, as verbs are semantically and grammatically complex components of discourse.
Narrative discourse samples of people with mild aphasia (categorized as anomic or not-aphasic by the Western Aphasia Battery) were analyzed for informativeness (CIUs/ word count) and efficiency (CIUs/ length of sample in minutes) as well as verb use (total number of verbs, errored and correctly used verbs). Weak relationships were found between informativeness and verb use, moderate relationships were found between efficiency and verb accuracy, and a strong relationship was found between total number of CIUs and total number of verbs.
These findings suggest a link between micro and macrolinguisic levels of language, which may impact the ease of discourse analysis for clinicians working with PWA.
Recommended Citation
Konishesky, Katherine, "A Simpler Way to Measure Discourse? The Relationship between Verb Use and Correct Information Units in the Narrative Discourse of People with Anomic Aphasia" (2018). Master's Theses. 1288.
https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/gs_theses/1288
Major Advisor
Jennifer Mozeiko