An analysis of the word-finding difficulties and of the content of the content of the discourse of recent and chronic aphasic speakers

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Abstract
This study examined the changes in the discourse produced by recent and chronic aphasic speakers while describing the bank robbery picture from the Montréal-Toulouse protocol (Nespoulous et al. 1986) at two different assessments, on average 6 weeks apart. The manifestations of word-finding difficulties, content unit production and several efficacy of communication indices were analysed. No statistical improvement of word-finding difficulties or of content unit production was found in the discourse in the recent aphasic group. Overall, both groups were more efficient on the second assessment on the index of number of open-class words per unit of time. Significant correlations were observed between aphasia severity and content unit production, as well as with the efficacy of communication indices.