Linguistic Communication Measure Research Articles

Linguistic analysis in public speaking: evidence from a Gavel Club for people with aphasia

ABSTRACT Public speaking has been described as one of the most daunting tasks one can engage in, even more so for people with aphasia (PWA). Gavel Clubs (affiliated with Toastmasters International) were established over 20 years ago for those who want to engage in public speaking but do not meet the eligibility criteria for Toastmasters membership. This study is the first of its kind to systematically evaluate changes in the speeches of PWA attending a weekly Gavel Club. The aims were to compare Table Topics (TT) and Prepared Speeches (PS) which are two different tasks regularly performed in a Gavel Club; to measure linguistic change over time in the two speech types; and to determine the feasibility of a discourse measure for analysing public speeches. Thirty-six speeches (four each from nine PWA) were audio-recorded, transcribed and analysed using the Linguistic Communication Measure (LCM). The nine participants represented a wide range of aphasia severity. Analysis revealed that engaging in weekly speaking activities in the GC was associated with an improvement in conveying content and in grammaticality through an increase in total number of words and number of correct words produced. The LCM is a comprehensive analysis tool but proved to be challenging in its speed and utility when measuring linguistic change in public speeches of PWA. Regular GC participation appears to facilitate improved language abilities, but we have yet to find the best tool to demonstrate this.

The Taiwanese Mandarin Linguistic Communication Measure (TM-LCM): An adaptation study for quantifying discourse produced by healthy individuals and speakers with aphasia in Taiwan

The Taiwanese Mandarin Linguistic Communication Measure (TM-LCM): An adaptation study for quantifying discourse produced by healthy individuals and speakers with aphasia in Taiwan

Analysing speech problems in a longitudinal case study of logopenic variant PPA

Background: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a neurodegenerative form of dementia in which gradually worsening language impairments are the prominent feature in the initial stages. PPA is commonly differentiated into three variants: nonfluent agrammatic (PPA-NVF), semantic (PPA-SV), and logopenic (PPA-LV).Aims: This article provides a longitudinal description of changes in picture description produced by a woman with PPA-LV, introduces a reliable new measure that captures those changes, and relates the measured changes to raters’ perceptions of changes in discourse quality.Method & Procedures: Seven oral descriptions of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE) Cookie Theft picture were digitally recorded over the course of 27 months and later transcribed. Transcriptions were analysed using a new adaptation of the Linguistic Communication Measure (LCM) and the Linguistic Communication Measure-Revised Cantonese (LCM-RC) designed to be sensitive to the features of PPA-LV. We have named this third form the LCM, the Linguistic Communication Measure–-Speech Sounds (LCM-SS). Audio recordings of the seven picture descriptions plus three produced by typical speakers of similar age were rated for goodness by 15 raters.Outcomes & Results: Goodness ratings of the participants’ speech samples decreased steadily over the 27 months. Although our previous measures of discourse quality (LCM, LCMC-RC) appeared to work well for capturing many of the speakers with vascular aphasia, they failed to capture the nature of this participant’s decline: Her lexical access slowed over time, but did not become more error-prone, and morphosyntactic components did not worsen, with errors remaining low to almost absent. However, speech sound errors and repetitions increased steadily over the 27 months. The new measure, LCM-SS, succeeded in capturing this pattern of decline: Several of the LCM-SS measures were highly correlated to ratings of goodness, and two of the LCM-SS indices (sound errors and grammatical errors) accounted for 98% of the variance in the goodness ratings.Conclusions: Over the course of 27 months, the most significant change in this participant’s Cookie Theft descriptions was the steady increase in sound errors, in the context of decreased efficiency in lexical retrieval and relatively stable grammatical form. This pattern was also highly related to listeners’ perceptions of the quality of discourse. Neither of the previous versions of the LCM captured this debilitating increase in sound errors, but adding the index of sound errors to those previous versions resulted in an analysis method that was sensitive to the linguistic features exhibited by this participant with PPA-LV.

Development of the Taiwanese Mandarin Main Concept Analysis (TM-MCA): Normative and Preliminary Aphasic Data

Development of the Taiwanese Mandarin Main Concept Analysis (TM-MCA): Normative and Preliminary Aphasic Data

Aphasia Assessment in Chinese Speakers

Aphasia Assessment in Chinese Speakers

The Main Concept Analysis in Cantonese Aphasic Oral Discourse: External Validation and Monitoring Chronic Aphasia

The 1st aim of this study was to further establish the external validity of the main concept (MC) analysis by examining its relationship with the Cantonese Linguistic Communication Measure (CLCM; Kong, 2006; Kong & Law, 2004)-an established quantitative system for narrative production-and the Cantonese version of the Western Aphasia Battery (CAB; Yiu, 1992). The 2nd purpose of the study was to evaluate how well the MC analysis reflects the stability of discourse production among chronic Cantonese speakers with aphasia. Sixteen participants with aphasia were evaluated on the MC analysis, CAB, and CLCM in the summer of 2008 and were subsequently reassessed in the summer of 2009. They encompassed a range of aphasia severity (with an Aphasia Quotient ranging between 30.2/100 and 94.8/100 at the time of the 1st evaluation). Significant associations were found between the MC measures and the corresponding CLCM indices and CAB performance scores that were relevant to the presence, accuracy, and completeness of content in oral narratives. Moreover, the MC analysis was found to yield comparable scores for chronic speakers on 2 occasions 1 year apart. The present study has further established the external validity of MC analysis in Cantonese. Future investigations involving more speakers with aphasia will allow adequate description of its psychometric properties.

A linguistic communication measure for monitoring changes in Chinese aphasic narrative production

This study investigated the usefulness of the Cantonese Linguistic Communication Measure (CLCM) in monitoring changes of narrative production in five Chinese adults with aphasia in the period of spontaneous recovery (SR group) and four who underwent anomia therapies (Tx group). Language samples elicited from a picture description task were collected among SR participants at regular intervals within the first 6 months post‐onset and among Tx participants before and after treatment. Results showed that the CLCM indices could reflect changes of language production in these individuals over time. The changes of index values were consistent with the expectations of performance during early stages after stroke for the SR participants and treatment outcomes of the Tx participants. While the CLCM has previously been shown to be useful in measuring aphasic narratives on a single occasion, this study has provided further evidence of its capability to monitor changes of language production over time.

External validation of the Cantonese linguistic communication measure

External validation of the Cantonese linguistic communication measure

Using the Cantonese linguistic communication measure to monitor changes of narrative production in aphasic patients

Using the Cantonese linguistic communication measure to monitor changes of narrative production in aphasic patients

A Cantonese linguistic communication measure for evaluating aphasic narrative production: normative and preliminary aphasic data

This paper describes the use of a Cantonese linguistic communication measure (CLCM) to quantify narrative production of Cantonese aphasic speakers. Four new pictures containing local characteristics were developed, including revised pictures from the BDAE (Goodglass and Kaplan, 1993), WAB (Kertesz, 1982) and its Cantonese version (Yiu, 1992), and a picture depicting a Chinese restaurant. The development of pictorial stimuli was motivated by the lack of culturally appropriate pictures for eliciting speech from Cantonese speakers. The CLCM contains eight indices reflecting the amount, efficiency, and rate of information conveyed, the grammaticality and extent of elaboration of sentences produced, as well as the degree of error production and lexical diversity in the speech output. Normative data from 30 native Cantonese speakers were collected. Results of preliminary pathological data from 10 Cantonese aphasic patients revealed significant differences between normal and aphasic speakers on most of the indices.

A Cantonese linguistic communication measure (CLCM): Further development

A Cantonese linguistic communication measure (CLCM): Further development

A Cantonese linguistic communication measure

Although there has been a longstanding interest in English aphasic speech, studies of Cantonese aphasic narratives have only emerged recently. This paper presents a Cantonese linguistic communication measure (henceforth, CLCM), which is a convenient measure for analysing Cantonese aphasic narratives. Taking into consideration the characteristics of the Cantonese grammar, the lexical diversity, communication efficiency, grammaticality and elaborateness of Cantonese aphasic speech are quantified. Sixteen Cantonese-speaking aphasic patients and 16 control subjects were recruited to carry out a picture description task. The findings indicated that most indices could distinguish between normal and aphasic speakers. Moreover, two indices indicating the length of the narrative and the rate of information conveyed could further discriminilte fluent from non-fluent aphasics. Given the simplicity of index computation, the CLCM may render speech therapists in general clinical settings an objective, quick and convenient means to quantify patients' expressive language abilities.

A linguistic communication measure for aphasic narratives

Abstract This paper presents a linguistic communication measure (LCM) for analysis of transcriptions of aphasic and other disordered narratives. The LCM responds to three clinically important dimensions of narrative language production: the amount of information that the patient can convey in words, the proportion of informative to non-informative words produced, and the grammaticality of the expression. The measure is designed for evaluating patient progress or deterioration in either research or general clinical settings. It can be applied rapidly to any fairly short transcribed narrative text whose target meaning is known to the examiner (e.g. the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (1983) ‘Cookie Theft’ picture). The LCM requires only a short rater training period, appears to be reliable, and accords with clinical intuitions about the nature of aphasic patients' communicative difficulties, although full psychometric calibration and validation of the tool have yet to be undertaken.