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 at investigating 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.

Keywords:

• aphasia
• traumatic brain injury (TBI)
• discourse coherence

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to show utmost appreciation to Dr. Jie Zhu and clinicians in the Speech Therapy Department of the Guangdong Work Injury Rehabilitation Hospital (Guangzhou, China) for their help in participant recruitment and testing. The authors also thank all participants for their help and cooperation during data collection.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflict of interests.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by The 2016 Departmental General Research Funds sponsored by the Research Office of The Polytechnic University of Hong Kong (project code 4-ZZFP) to Dustin Kai-Yan Lau (PI) and Anthony Pak-Hin Kong (Co-I).