Assessing spontaneous language abilities of aphasic speakers

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Abstract
Aphasia is an acquired language disorder subsequent to brain damage in which aspects of a speaker's language are impaired in varying combinations and degrees. Although, traditionally, these language impairments have been assessed by tests consisting of tasks such as naming, repetition, sentence construction and recitation of serial speech, there is increasing interest in developing detailed and systematic descriptive frameworks whereby spon taneous conversational or monologic speech can be quantified. In this article we report on a three-year research project in which we are developing such a framework capable of revealing relevant and detailed linguistic features (focusing on lexical and grammatical features) of aphasic speech. Spon taneous speech samples are collected from aphasic and normal speakers in dyadic conversational settings and from monologic picture description tasks. The samples are transcribed and lexical, phrasal and clausal elements identified, coded and quantified. We report on our elicitation, coding and quantification procedures, give some preliminary results as illustration and discuss whether this method of assessment reveals characteristics of aphasic versus normal speech otherwise undisclosed by more traditional methods of testing.

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