MC production in aphasia and controls (Dalton & Richardson, 2019)

Purpose: The purposes of this study are to provide clinicians and researchers with introductory psychometric data for the main concept analysis (MCA), a measure of discourse informativeness, and specifically, to provide descriptive and comparative statistical information about the performance of a large sample of persons not brain injured (PNBIs) and persons with aphasia (PWAs) on AphasiaBank discourse tasks.

Method: Transcripts of 5 semi-spontaneous discourse tasks were retrieved from the AphasiaBank database and scored according to detailed checklists and scoring procedures. Transcripts from 145 PNBIs and 238 PWAs were scored; descriptive statistics, median tests, and effect sizes are reported.

Results: PWAs demonstrated overall lower informativeness scores and more frequent production of statements that were inaccurate and/or incomplete. Differences between PNBIs and PWAs were observed for all main concept measures and stories. Comparisons of PNBIs and aphasia subtypes revealed significant differences for all groups, although the pattern of differences and strength of effect sizes varied by group and discourse task.

Conclusions: These results may improve the investigative and clinical utility of the MCA by providing descriptive and comparative information for PNBIs and PWAs for standardized discourse tasks that can be reliably scored. The results indicate that the MCA is sensitive to differences in discourse as a result of aphasia.

Supplemental Material S1. Median tests results comparing all persons with aphasia to all controls for the five discourse tasks.

Supplemental Material S2. Comparison median tests comparing all individuals not aphasic by Western Aphasia Battery (NABW) to all controls for the five discourse tasks.

Supplemental Material S3. Comparison median tests comparing all individuals with anomic aphasia to all controls for the five discourse tasks.

Supplemental Material S4. Comparison median tests comparing all individuals with conduction aphasia to all controls for the five discourse tasks.

Supplemental Material S5. Comparison median tests comparing all individuals with Wernicke's aphasia to all controls for the five discourse tasks.

Supplemental Material S6. Comparison median tests comparing all individuals with Broca’s aphasia to all controls for the five discourse tasks.

Supplemental Material S7. Percent overlap of persons not brain injured (PNBIs) with each aphasia subtype (left) and percent overlap of each aphasia subtype with PNBIs (right) for main concept (MC) composite score. NABW= not aphasic by Western Aphasia Battery (WAB).

Supplemental Material S8. Correlation of main concept (MC) composite scores across the five discourse tasks.

Supplemental Material S9. Correlation of number of accurate/complete (AC) codes across the five discourse tasks.

Supplemental Material S10. Correlation of number of accurate/incomplete (AI) codes across the five discourse tasks.

Supplemental Material S11. Correlation of number of inaccurate/complete (IC) codes across the five discourse tasks.

Supplemental Material S12. Correlation of number of inaccurate/incomplete (II) codes across the five discourse tasks.

Supplemental Material S13. Correlation of number of absent (AB) codes across the five discourse tasks.

Supplemental Material S14. Correlation of number of main concept (MC) attempts across the five discourse tasks.

Dalton, S. G. H., & Richardson, J. D. (2019). A large-scale comparison of main concept production between persons with aphasia and persons without brain injury. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 28(1S), 293-320. https://doi.org/10.1044/2018_AJSLP-17-0166

Publisher Note: This article is part of the Special Issue: Select Papers From the 47th Clinical Aphasiology Conference.