The effect of elicitation task on discourse coherence and cohesion in adolescents with brain injury

• Published in: Journal of communication disorders Vol. 32; no. 5; pp. 327 - 349
• Main Authors: Van Leer, Eva, Turkstra, Lyn
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY Elsevier Inc 01.09.1999; Elsevier Science
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Adult; Adult and adolescent clinical studies; Biological and medical sciences; Brain Injuries - complications; Brain Injuries - diagnosis; Brain Injuries - psychology; Cognitive Processes; Communication; Communication assessment; Communication Skills; Discourse Analysis; Female; Head injury; Humans; Interpersonal Competence; Interpersonal Relations; Language and communication disorders; Language Disorders - etiology; Male; Medical sciences; Narrative structure; Neurological Impairments; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Severity of Illness Index; Symptoms (Individual Disorders); Verbal Communication; Communication assessment; Discourse analysis; Head injury; Narrative structure; Human; Cohesion; Nervous system diseases; Information organization; Craniocerebral; Diseases of the osteoarticular system; Trauma; Language disorder; Cerebral disorder; Communication disorder; Narrative; Central nervous system disease; Adolescent; Coherence; Skull disease; Neurological disorder
• ISSN: 0021-9924; 1873-7994
• DOI: 10.1016/S0021-9924(99)00008-8

Six adolescents with traumatic brain injury and six adolescents who had been hospitalized for an illness or injury not affecting the brain were administered two narrative tasks designed to vary in their demand for spontaneous organization of information and minimize the requirement for new learning. The discourse topics—a description of each subject's injury and hospitalization, and a re-telling of a current event—were chosen to be representative of discourse in adolescent daily living. Narratives produced by subjects in each group were compared between the two tasks on measures of coherence and cohesion. Subjects in both groups produced significantly more coherent and cohesive narratives in the personal event task than in the current event task, and there was no significant difference between groups. The results are discussed in relation to face validity of language tasks for adolescents, and the multiple factors contributing to adolescent social discourse.