The Communicative Informativeness and Efficiency of Connected Discourse by Adults With Aphasia Under Structured and Conversational Sampling Conditions

Abstract

Measuring communicative informativeness under conversational discourse conditions is perhaps the most valid means of determining the interpersonal verbal communication abilities of adults with aphasia. Nevertheless, the data derived from such analyses are expensive to collect and subject to unknown sources of variability. In this study, samples of connected discourse were obtained from 20 subjects with aphasia under structured and conversational sampling conditions to determine the extent to which they were related on measures of communicative informativeness. Results revealed that subjects produced significantly greater percentages of informative words [i.e., correct information units (Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993)] under conversational discourse conditions, but that the percentage of correct information units produced during structured discourse tasks could be used to predict performance under conversational conditions with a high degree of accuracy.