Robert J. Duffy

Nonverbal communication of affect in brain-damaged patients.

A slide viewing technique designed to assess spontaneous nonverbal expressiveness was administered to 37 male patients including 8 left hemisphere damaged (aphasic), 10 right hemisphere damaged, 9 Parkinsons disease, and 10 non brain-damaged (control) patients. Patients watched different types of affective slides while their facial/gestural responses were videotaped. Judges watching the video tapes without audio guessed the types of slide being viewed. Results indicated that aphasic patients were equal to or more expressive than controls, while right hemisphere damaged and Parkinsons disease patients were less expressive. The possibility that spontaneous non verbal expressiveness is mediated by the right cerebral hemisphere, with the left hemisphere playing an inhibitory role, was discussed as a tentative explanation.

Impairments of discourse abilities and executive functions in traumatically brain-injured adults

Preliminary findings from an ongoing investigation of the potential relationship between narrative discourse performance and executive functions in adults with traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are reported. Narrative stories were elicited from 32 adults with TBI. Stories were analysed at three levels: sentence production, intersentential cohesive adequacy, and story episode structure. These measures were then correlated with scores from the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), the primary measure of executive function. A significant correlation was noted between a factor score from the WCST and the measure of story structure, but not sentence production or cohesive adequacy. These results suggest that executive functions may be a promising avenue to pursue in the search for underlying causal factors of narrative discourse dysfunction and, therefore to better delineate the nature of communicative deficits secondary to TBI.

An investigation of body part as object (BPO) responses in normal and brain-damaged adults

A test of simple pantomime was administered to three groups of adults and comparisons were made across groups of the incidence of subjects who exhibited body part as object (BPO) responses and of the mean frequency of occurrence of BPO in each group. The three groups were left-hemisphere-damaged aphasics (N = 28), right-hemisphere-damaged (N = 24), and normal controls (N = 28). The results indicated no significant differences among groups on the BPO measures. Also, to test the strength of association between the frequency of occurrence of BPO and measures of limb apraxia and severity of aphasia for the left-hemisphere-damaged aphasic group, correlation coefficients were obtained. The correlations were low and nonsignificant. The results of this investigation do not support the common clinical assumption that the occurrence of BPO during the performance of simple pantomimes is pathognomic for left-hemisphere pathology or associated with limb apraxia.

The use of discourse analyses for the evaluation of higher level traumatically brain-injured adults

Higher level traumatically brain-injured (TBI) adults often present a challenge in assessment as well as in the measurement of recovery. Traditional clinical measures of language abilities have not been adequate to identify and describe precisely what is deviant about their communication. Assessment has generally consisted of aphasia tests and measures of general cognitive abilities. Although such measures may be sensitive to deficits in lower level TBI patients or those in the early stages of recovery, their usefulness with higher functioning patients is questionable due to the often subtle nature of their residual communication problems. An overview of discourse analyses is presented and recent applications of these procedures with TBI patients reviewed.

The relationship of the acquisition of manual signs to severity of aphasia: A training study☆

To investigate the relationship between success in the acquisition of signs and the degree of severity of aphasic impairment 12 chronic severely aphasic subjects participated in a training program for the acquisition of a vocabulary of manual signs. The results demonstrate a clear and significant relationship between severity of aphasia and success in the acquisition and generalization of manual signs. The results also indicate that there may be a threshold of severity of aphasia below which acquisition is negligible. Discussion is presented relative to the theoretical, clinical, and methodological implications of these findings.

Comparison Of The Performances Of A Fluent And A Nonfluent Aphasic On A Pantomimic Referential Task

The pantomimic performances of a typical Brocas (nonfluent) and Wernickes (fluent) aphasic were compared with each other and with four normal control subjects on a simple task of nonverbal referential communication. Both aphasic subjects demonstrated only about 50% accuracy in their pantomimic communication. Also, measures were obtained of the motoric fluency of the pantomimes of all subjects and comparisons were made between the fluent and nonfluent aphasics. These measures demonstrated distinct differences in the fluency patterns of the pantomimes of the two aphasic subjects similar to the differences in speech fluency which distinguish and characterize these two types of aphasia; that is, the fluent aphasic pantomimed fluently and like the control subjects and the nonfluent aphasic pantomimed nonfluently. The quantitative and qualitative similarities in the fluency patterns of the speech and the pantomimic behaviors of the aphasic subjects are discussed in terms of their implications for a definition of aphasia.

Fundamental Frequency Characteristics of Adolescent Females.

The purpose of the present study was to obtain data descriptive of the vocal pitch characteristics of adolescent females. The speaking voices of females at ages 11, 13 and 15 years were recorded and measured using standard phonellescopic procedures. Data are presented describing the average fundamental frequency of the speaking voice, variability of pitch usage and incidence of frequency breaks (voice breaks) for the three age levels studied. Observations are made of the relationship between menarche and changing fundamental frequency levels. These data are compared with similar data on males and females of other age levels from previous studies. The data are reviewed and discussed as to their implication for a description of female voice change.

Sign acquisition in two aphasic subjects with limb apraxia

Abstract Two aphasic subjects with moderate-severe limb apraxia were enrolled in a sign/gesture training programme to investigate the effect of limb apraxia on the acquisition of manual signals. Both subjects were able to acquire all of the single signs/gestures and some or all of the sign combinations (e.g. agent-action-object; action-object) presented during the training programme. Results indicate that limb apraxia does not appear to be a significant impediment in the acquisition of signs/gestures by aphasic subjects. Severity of aphasia would seem to be a more important factor in predicting success in the development of a manual communication system.

Testing causal theories of pantomimic deficits in aphasia using path analysis

Abstract For the past several decades it has been recognized that deficits in both pantomime expression and pantomime recognition exist as part of the syndrome of communication deficits associated with aphasia. To test the major theories proposed to explain the cause(s) of these pantomimic deficits and their association with aphasic verbal deficits, path analysis and LISREL were used to analyse five causal models. (Path analysis is a type of structural equation modelling and LISREL is a computer program used to assess the models against the obtained data.) Data were obtained from 41 left-hemisphere-damaged aphasic subjects. The results of the path and LISREL analyses led to the rejection of four of the five models. Three of the four rejected models tested asymbolia, intellectual loss, limb apraxia, and visual processing deficit as sole causal factors; the fourth rejected model was a multicausal model testing intellectual loss, limb apraxia, asymbolia, and visual processing deficit. The one model that prov...

Intonation unit analysis of conversational discourse in closed head injury.

This study employed a modification of the intonation unit analysis for conversational discourse developed by Mentis and Prutting. The percentage of total intonation units produced within separate ideational categories was calculated for groups of closed head-injured and normal control subjects as well as the examiner. No significant differences were found between subject groups or the examiners performance within the two groups. However, significant differences were noted between the examiners production of intonation units and the performances of both subject groups. Findings suggest the manner in which samples of conversation were elicited may have constrained the context, thereby masking potential differences between groups.