The effects of concurrent picture presentations on retelling of orally presented stories by adults with aphasia

Abstract

This study investigated whether measures of verbal productivity, verbal disruption, information content, grammatical complexity, and grammatical well formedness would vary as a function of experimental conditions in which the presence of pictured stimuli was manipulated during the oral presentation and retelling of stories. Fifteen adults with aphasia retold stories under three experimental conditions: (i) concurrent presentation of oral and pictured versions of stories followed by a picture-supported retell, (ii) concurrent presentation of oral and pictured versions of stories followed by a 'free' retell, and (iii) orally presented stories followed by a free retell. Group analyses revealed no significant differences across experimental conditions for any of the dependent measures. Analyses of individual subjects' data revealed clinically important differences for several measures of information content, with individual subjects responding differently to the experimental conditions.