Gloria Streit Olness

Repetition in Narratives of African Americans: The Effects of Aphasia

This study considers the use of repetition in the narratives of African Americans and the way in which this ethnic use of repetition might be altered or constrained by aphasia. Two groups of African Americans-1 neurologically normal and 1 with aphasia-produced narratives of a frightening experience. Instances of repetition were analyzed qualitatively for function and form of expression. We were interested specifically in the balance of various structural and functional types of repetition among individuals with aphasia and neurologically normal individuals as well as how this might reflect ubiquity or specificity of a given range of repetition types. Results suggested maintenance of ethnic repetitions in individuals with aphasia. The influences of culture, narrative topic, and aphasia severity on narrative repetition and its functions are discussed.

Discourse elicitation with pictorial stimuli in African Americans and Caucasians with and without aphasia

Background: Pictorial stimuli are a traditional means of discourse elicitation for individuals with aphasia. The discourse genre produced in response to pictures may be affected by the presence of aphasia, the nature of the stimulus, or both. Ethnicity may also influence discourse responses, an issue critical for effective differentiation between communication changes associated with pathology and normal differences associated with ethnicity. There is a need for discourse research with African Americans who have aphasia, highlighted by ethnic group differences in stroke prevalence, and potential ethnic group differences in dialect. Aims: This study was designed to address whether the quantity and quality of discourse produced in response to pictorial stimuli differed between African Americans and Caucasians with and without aphasia. Methods & Procedures: We investigated the discourse of 33 African Americans with aphasia, 30 African American non-brain-injured controls, 29 Caucasians with aphasia, and 32 Caucasian non-brain-injured controls in their responses to two single pictures and one picture sequence. For the individuals with aphasia, aphasia severity level ranged from mild to moderate. There were no significant group differences for age or education. Participants were asked to “tell a story” and responses were produced after the stimulus was removed. Analyses included length of response (in propositions), discourse genre of response (narrative versus descriptive), occurrence of ethnic dialect, and thematic content. Outcomes & Results: In both ethnic groups, individuals with aphasia produced less language on the most complex stimulus. Single pictures elicited more descriptive discourse, and the picture sequence more narratives, for all groups. Features of African American dialect were observed in responses of both African American non-brain-injured controls and African Americans with aphasia on all stimuli, especially in narrative genre responses. Thematic content was similar across groups.

Relationship between discourse and Western Aphasia Battery performance in African Americans with aphasia

Background: There is a need for discourse research with African Americans who have aphasia, highlighted by ethnic group differences in stroke prevalence, and potential ethnic group differences in dialect. Identification of ethnic dialect is critical to differentiate communication changes associated with pathology from normal communicative differences associated with ethnicity. Also, preliminary research on adults with aphasia indicates an uncertain relationship between discourse performance and standardised test performance. Aims: This study was designed to assess: (1) the relationship between performance on a standardised language measure and discourse performance, and (2) the use of ethnic dialect and discourse features, in the narrative productions of African-American adults with moderate aphasia on a variety of discourse tasks. Methods & Procedures: We investigated the discourse of 12 African Americans with scores in the moderate severity range on the Western Aphasia Battery, Aphasia Quotient (WAB-AQ). Each subject produced a fable retell, a story derived from a picture sequence, two stories derived from single pictures, and a topic-elicited personal narrative of a frightening experience. Analysis consisted of ratings of discourse quality (coherence, reference, and emplotment); a measure of discourse quantity (number of propositions); and a tally of the presence or absence of ethnic dialect and discourse features. Outcomes & Results: The correlation between WAB-AQ and discourse quality was statistically significant on the picture sequence task and one single-picture task, but not on the other discourse tasks. There was a significant relationship between WAB-AQ and overall quality ratings of coherence, reference, and emplotment. The correlation between WAB-AQ and discourse quantity was not significant for any task, and discourse quality was not significantly correlated with discourse quantity. Ethnic features appeared most often on one single-picture task and the personal narrative. No ethnic dialect features occurred on the fable retell. Conclusions : These findings suggest the need to supplement standardised assessment of aphasia with assessment of discourse performance, using less structured discourse tasks, such as a personal narrative task. Less structured discourse tasks may also be optimal for eliciting natural ethnic patterns of communication. The lack of relationship between narrative quantity and narrative quality may not generalise to individuals with aphasia that is severe or mild. This study contributes towards development of a discourse assessment tool for culturally and linguistically diverse populations that may supplement information provided by standardised testing.

Comparison of language impairment, functional communication, and discourse measures in African-American aphasic and normal adults

We compared performance on language impairment, functional communication, and discourse measures between 33 African-American aphasic patients and 30 African-American normal subjects. The aphasic group performed significantly lower than the normal group on the Western Aphasia Battery Aphasia and Cortical Quotients, Token Test, and ASHA Functional Assessment of Communication Skills for Adults. Moreover, the aphasic group performed significantly lower than the normal group in their quality of language on a discourse task that required telling a frightening experience. Significant relationships between performance on the measures were confined to those that index language impairment. Use of a normal ethnic cohort for comparison with African-American aphasic performance may control for potential ethnic bias in the measures. In addition, use of a discourse task permits observation of grammatical and stylistic features in African-American English that may not be captured or are ignored by traditional language impairment and functional communication measures.

Macrostructure revisited: An examination of gist responses in aphasia

The ability to extract and express the gist from a body of information reflects high level language processing related to the construct of macrostructure (Kintsch, 1999). General findings from aphasia (e.g., Ulatowska, Sadowska, Kordys, & Kadzielawa, 1993) indicate that gists, as one expression of macrostructure, are preserved in many individuals with mild aphasia. However, these expressions of gist may be more frequently bound to the text among individuals with aphasia, especially at more severe impairment levels. The processing of macrostructure depends heavily on the organization and form of the information from which the gist is derived. Studies of gist processing in aphasia to date have employed tasks requiring processing of verbal information in the form of narrative texts. The current study examines whether these findings also generalize to didactic information in other modes. This study was designed to answer the following questions: