Discourse Of People Research Articles

Dual-Task Effects on Story Retell for Participants With Moderate, Mild, or No Aphasia: Quantitative and Qualitative Findings.

Purpose The aims of the study were to determine dual-task effects on content accuracy, delivery speed, and perceived effort during narrative discourse in people with moderate, mild, or no aphasia and to explore subjective reactions to retelling a story with a concurrent task. Method Two studies (1 quantitative and 1 qualitative) were conducted. In Study 1, participants with mild or moderate aphasia and neurotypical controls retold short stories in isolation and while simultaneously distinguishing between high and low tones. Story retell accuracy (speech productivity and efficiency), speed (speech rate, repetitions, and pauses), and perceived effort were measured and compared. In Study 2, participants completed semistructured interviews about their story retell experience. These interviews were recorded, transcribed orthographically, and coded qualitatively using thematic analysis. Results The dual task interfered more with spoken language of people with aphasia than controls, but different speed-accuracy trade-off patterns were noted. Participants in the moderate aphasia group reduced accuracy with little alteration to speed, whereas participants in the mild aphasia group maintained accuracy and reduced their speed. Participants in both groups also reported more negative emotional and behavioral reactions to the dual-task condition than their neurotypical peers. Intentional strategies for coping with the cognitive demands of the dual-task condition were only reported by participants with mild aphasia. Conclusion The findings suggest that, although communicating with a competing task is more difficult for people with aphasia than neurotypical controls, participants with mild aphasia may be better able to cope with cognitively demanding communication situations than participants with moderate aphasia. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.8233391.

How do people with learning disabilities talk about professionals and organizations? Discourse on support practices for independent living

The aims of the research presented here are two-fold: to determine the decision-making role that people with learning disabilities award organizations and professionals offering support for independent living; and to assess the extent to which the dominant discourses of people with learning disabilities incorporate individual or social approaches. Ten focus groups were held with self-advocacy groups of people with learning disabilities. The critical discourse analysis approach was used to analyse the transcripts. The analysis shows that the discourse of people with learning disabilities tends to legitimize the role of organizations and professionals as agents in making decisions regarding their own lives. The study highlights the need to make use of these discourses to work together with people with learning disabilities to promote the exercising of their rights in decision-making and taking control of their lives.

A simplified model to assess vulnerable areas for urban regeneration

The plethora of approaches to assess urban sustainability entails the challenge of selecting the most appropriate model. Theoretical models constitute a necessary and valuable starting point, but here we highlight the limits of their practical implementation. We develop a simplified model that permits the attainability and applicability to actual cases by focussing on vulnerable urban areas, based on the selection of ad hoc indicators. The latter implies performing an in-depth analysis of the physical and socio-economic context due to the variety of urban models. Afterwards, an expert-led process is carried out to select appropriate indicators by considering people's discourse through participatory techniques, especially the vulnerable population's interests. This, together with information availability, determines the final model.The applicability of the model was tested and actually applied to the development of the new Land-Use Plan of Castellón (Spain), and to define and evaluate vulnerable areas that need to be prioritised in potential urban interventions. The indicators permit a vulnerability assessment within the time frame required for decision making on the priority interventions in certain urban land planning areas. As a result, 17 areas were defined, analysed and compared.

The present meaning of the discourse of people’s literature in the 1980s

The present meaning of the discourse of people’s literature in the 1980s

The feasibility of improving discourse in people with aphasia through AAC: clinical and functional MRI correlates

ABSTRACTBackground:The theory of intersystemic reorganization, along with the ability of people with chronic aphasia to recover language function, suggests that a high-tech augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device could be employed as a dual-purpose tool that simultaneously facilitates language recovery and compensates for deficits. To date, treatments based on intersystemic reorganization have focused on writing, drawing, and gesturing. Further, despite a movement to identify neural mechanisms that support intervention-related recovery, the neurobiological markers of AAC-induced changes have not been established.Aims: The purpose of this study is twofold: (1) to examine the feasibility of providing a high-tech AAC treatment to people with chronic aphasia, with the goal of evoking changes in spoken language; and (2) to identify evidence of AAC-induced changes in brain activation.Method and Procedures: We employed a pre- and post-treatment design with a control (usual care) group to observe the impact of an AAC treatment on aphasia severity and spoken discourse. Further, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine associated neural reorganization.Outcomes and Results: Compared to the usual care group, the AAC intervention trended toward larger treatment effects and resulted in a higher number of responders on behavioral outcomes. Both groups demonstrated a trend toward greater leftward lateralization of language functions via fMRI. Secondary analyses of responders to treatment revealed increased activation in visual processing regions, primarily for the AAC group.Conclusions: This study provides preliminary guidance regarding how to implement AAC treatment in a manner that simultaneously facilitates language recovery across a variety of aphasia types and severity levels while compensating for residual deficits in people with chronic aphasia. Further, this work motivates continued efforts to unveil the role of AAC-based interventions in the aphasia recovery process and provides insight regarding the neurobiological mechanisms supporting AAC-induced language changes.

Attentive Reading With Constrained Summarization Adapted to Address Written Discourse in People With Mild Aphasia.

The purpose of this study was to examine the preliminary efficacy of Attentive Reading and Constrained Summarization-Written (ARCS-W) in people with mild aphasia. ARCS-W adapts an existing treatment, ARCS (Rogalski & Edmonds, 2008), to address discourse level writing in mild aphasia. ARCS-W focuses on the cognitive and linguistic skills required for discourse production. This study was a within-subject pre-postdesign. Three people with mild aphasia participated. ARCS-W integrates attentive reading or listening with constrained summarization of discourse level material in spoken and written modalities. Outcomes included macro- (main concepts) and microlinguistic (correct information units, complete utterances) discourse measures, confrontation naming, aphasia severity, and functional communication. All 3 participants demonstrated some generalization to untrained spoken and written discourse at the word, sentence, and text levels. Reduced aphasia severity and/or increased functional communication and confrontation naming were also observed in some participants. The findings of this study provide preliminary evidence of the efficacy of ARCS-W to improve spoken and written discourse in mild aphasia. Different generalization patterns suggest different mechanisms of improvement. Further research and replication are required to better understand how ARCS-W can impact discourse abilities.

Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization-Written (ARCS-W), a treatment to improve written and spoken discourse in people with mild aphasia.

Attentive Reading with Constrained Summarization-Written (ARCS-W), a treatment to improve written and spoken discourse in people with mild aphasia.

IntegraSarea: Building up a Network for Integration in the Basque Country

Introduction : The Basque Country has been implementing integrating care policies since 2010 [1]. One of the cornerstones of this strategy has been the launch of 13 Integrated Health Care Organisations (IHOs) to integrate under the same structure Primary and Secondary Care Services [2]. However, structural integration does not deliver better care by its own. Each of the IHOs has had its own experience in integration/”IHOrmation” (ranging from 2010 to 2016) and best practices have not been systematically shared among them. In fact, merging structures could have the opposite desired effect if not followed by a cultural change among health professionals from both levels of care. IntegraSarea (Network for Integration in Basque) was launched in June 2015 with the aim to facilitate cultural change and uses a collaborative methodology to do so. It should be highlighted that professionals, managers and patients from all Integrated Care Organisations are invited to agree on a set of actions that at the end of the project will be incorporated in the integration narrative of the Basque Country. The objective is to combine a traditional top-down approach (the creation of the network is a priority set by the Governing Body of the Health System) together with a bottom-up approach (the actions to be implemented will be agreed by the people who work at the IHO´s) so that all actors at macro, meso and micro level take ownership of the project. Aims : The aim of IntegraSarea is that IHOs share and agree on their best practices and create a common narrative of integration that is shared by everyone. The idea behind this goal is: (i) to foster integration instead of competition between IHOs, (ii) homogenize best practices and certain key aspects of integration so that everyone can benefit, (iii) engage with health professionals and allow them to take ownership of integration policies in the Basque Country and (iv) incorporate the discourse for People and Person Centred Care to the core of the health care system as suggested by WHO [3]. Methodology : Firstly, a literature review to select the most relevant areas of work for integration was conducted and contrasted with relevant actors both internally (Managers of IHOs) and internationally (IFIC and AQuA). The areas that came after this review are: People Centred Care, Social and Care Coordination, Community Health, Model of care for Chronicity and Management. Secondly, one working group per area of work and formed by health professionals from all IHOs has been created and given the task of: (i) co-create a status report of their area of work in the Basque Country, (ii) review the best practices that exist at a local level (iii) agree on a series of actions/practices to scale them up. It should be stated that participants, mostly clinicians and intermediate cadres will play a vital role as agents of change back in their own IHO. Thirdly, in order to overcome the challenge of dissemination among all 35.000 professionals a newsletter is being sent monthly and an online repository in the intranet has been created to allow interaction of professionals from different IHOs. And last but not least, a panel of experts from both inside and outside the Basque Country has been given the mission to guide each workforce throughout the project in order to give technical support when needed. Results : This stage of the project will be completed in June 2016 and preliminary results will be presented in the Conference. In addition to the fulfilment of the deliverables described above a series of evaluation tools linked with integrated care will be used: IEMAC-ARCHO [4], D’Amour Questionnaire [5].

‘Do you want to do some arm wrestling?’: children's strategies when experiencing domestic violence and the meaning of age

AbstractThe aim of this study is, by analysing children's and young people's discourses, to investigate their strategies in response to domestic violence episodes, in relation to their age. The empirical data come from individual interviews with children and young people (ages 8–20 years) who had experienced domestic violence and lived at refuges for abused women. The thematic analysis shows that the children describe a wide range of strategies before, during and after a violent episode, that all children act regardless of age and that strategies vary according not only to age but also to situation and context. The theoretical framework used is the sociology of childhood, and the analysis engages with theoretical concepts of age, agency and positioning.

Let's talk about health: shoppers' discourse regarding health while food shopping.

The present study aimed to examine the role of health in consumers' food purchasing decisions through investigating the nature of people's discourse regarding health while conducting their food shopping. The study employed the think-aloud technique as part of an accompanied shop. All mentions of health and terms relating to health were identified from the data set. Inductive thematic analysis was conducted to examine how health was talked about in relation to people's food choice decisions. Supermarkets in Dublin, Republic of Ireland and Belfast, Northern Ireland. Participants (n 50) were aged over 18 years and represented the main household shopper. Responsibility for others and the perceived need to illicit strict control to avoid 'unhealthy' food selections played a dominant role in how health was talked about during the accompanied shop. Consequently healthy shopping was viewed as difficult and effort was required to make the healthy choice, with shoppers relating to product-based inferences to support their decisions. This qualitative exploration has provided evidence of a number of factors influencing the consideration of health during consumers' food shopping. These results highlight opportunities for stakeholders such as public health bodies and the food industry to explore further ways to help enable consumers make healthy food choices.

Test–Retest Stability of Word Retrieval in Aphasic Discourse

This study examined the test-retest stability of select word-retrieval measures in the discourses of people with aphasia who completed a 5-stimulus discourse task. Discourse samples across 3 sessions from 12 individuals with aphasia were analyzed for the stability of measures of informativeness, efficiency, main concepts, noun and verb retrieval, word-finding difficulty, and lexical diversity. Values for correlation coefficients and the minimal detectable change score were used to assess stability for research and clinical decision making. Measures stable enough to use in group research studies included the number of words; the number of correct information units (CIUs); the number of accurate-complete, accurate-incomplete, and absent main concepts; the percentage of T-units that had word-finding behaviors of any kind; the percentage of T-units that contained empty words; and a lexical diversity measure. Words per minute, CIUs per minute, and the percentage of T-units that contained time fillers or delays were sufficiently stable to use when making clinical decisions about an individual. Although several of the measures demonstrated acceptable stability for group research studies, relatively few were sufficiently stable for making clinical decisions about individuals on the basis of a single administration.

Exploring the role of the family in the construction of young people's health discourses and dispositions

This paper reports on an exploratory study with low income young people that sought to explore the discourses on which they drew their understandings about health and whether family structure mediated individual agency. Based on an interpretive perspective, the voices of three participants were selected from an inner city secondary school. Drawn from a larger study, participants were interviewed in pairs and asked to elaborate on their understanding and experience of health, fitness and physical activity. The analytical framework was influenced by the work of Bourdieu, recognising the importance of structure and agency. This study suggests that young people were implicated in the reproduction of a healthism discourse, while family was recognised as a social “field” that shaped their dispositions toward health-related practices. However their ability to enact health dispositions and maintain a healthy lifestyle was constrained by their family structure and the structural social conditions of their lives.

Young people's perspectives on conflict, reconciliation and reunification in Cyprus

The purpose of this paper is to explore the views of young people on conflict, reconciliation and reunification in Cyprus. The paper is based on focus group discussions with 20 Turkish Cypriot and 20 Greek Cypriot young people, aged between 14 and 16, drawn from two schools located in the divided capital city of Nicosia. While young people's discourses revealed underlying deep-seated hostilities in attitudes between the two groups, there was some evidence of cautious optimism. The paper explores what lessons can be learned from ascertaining young people's viewpoints and how these opinions need to be taken seriously in order to further our understanding of young people's experiences of divided societies.

Orientations to English in post-apartheid schooling

As Voloshinov has famously argued, ‘the word is the most sensitive index of social changes, and what is more, of changes still in the process of growth’ (Voloshinov, 1986: 19). Scrutiny of young people's discourses on language together with their language practices offers us a window into a society in transition, such as present-day South Africa. This article examines the language ideologies and language practices of Black youth attending previously White, now desegregated, suburban schools in South African cities, important spaces for the production of an expanding Black middle class (Soudien, 2004). Due to their resourcing during apartheid (both financial and human) previously White schools are aligned with quality education and perceived as strategic sites for the acquisition and maintenance of a prestige variety of South African English. This article looks at how mainly African girls (15–16 years) position themselves in relation to English, drawing on data collected using ethnographic approaches in four desegregated schools in South African cities: three in Johannesburg, Gauteng and one in Cape Town, Western Cape. The discussion focuses on two significant themes: English and the [re]production of race; and the place of English in young people's linguistic repertoires. My aim is to show how African youth in desegregated schools orient themselves to English and what their language ideologies and language practices might tell us about macro social processes, including the (re)constitution of race in South Africa. Schooling, as Bourdieu points out, is one of the most important sites for social reproduction and is thus also one of the key sites, ‘which imposes the legitimate forms of discourse and the idea that discourse should be recognised if and only if it conforms to the legitimate norms’ (Bourdieu, 1977: 650). However, co-present with processes of reproduction are practices that work to subvert and unsettle dominant discourses. Suburban desegregated schools are thus productive sites for the re-making of cultural practices (including language) and identities.

People, land and the struggle for rangatiratanga/autonomy in New Zealand

This article interrogates indigeneity in the context of two New Zealand indigenous discourses, one of them land orientated and the other people orientated. It argues that the former has generally been emphasized over and above the latter, which it examines principally in terms of the struggle for the rangatiratanga (loosely translatable as autonomy) promised to Maori by the British Crown in the Treaty of Waitangi of 1840. People-based discourse is seen as key to the resilience of Maoridom and its powerful assertions of agency in recent decades. But to argue in this way is not to discount the land discourse, which in the holistic Maori worldview is conflated with the people discourse and rangatiratanga

December uprising 2008: universality and particularity in young people's discourse

In this text I explore youth's discourse during the protests and riots that took place in Greece in December 2008. These riots occurred after the assassination of a 15-year-old student by a police officer in the centre of Athens. The uproar caused by the event had a major impact not only everywhere in Greece but also all over the world. Young students played a leading and central role in the protests so that the majority of journalists as well as many politicians and theorists claimed that it was a ‘revolution of the youth’, the ‘democracy of children’ and so forth. In this framework, a new discourse cropped up. Young people claimed the democratisation of the state and society; they demanded it happened ‘here and now’ instead of being a future utopia. Young people engaged dynamically in the conflict, and they did so on their own terms, stemming from their unique social experience as children, as students and as young people. Drawing from discourse theory, sociology of childhood and youth, I intend to examine how their own experience has affected and reconceptualised universals such as ‘democracy’, ‘citizenship’, ‘youth’, ‘childhood’ and so on.

“Delinquent behaviour as a kind of body politics” against adult regulations — Young people's discourses in Hong Kong

Usually, discourses of young people, particularly for the voices of ‘youth-at-disadvantage’, are silenced no matter in the social construction of their experiences or in the social investigation of their behaviour. Without their voices, a discourse of individual deficits is usually constructed to talk about their delinquent behaviour. However, in the discourses of young people, they considered their problem behaviour as a kind of ‘body politics’ to work against adult regulations. Moreover, obvious gender differences were revealed. While female adolescents constructed their problem behaviour as a tool to rebel against the harsh parental control on their leisure time activities, their male counterparts referred it as an escape to avoid heavy conflicts with parents on their school-to-work situations. In the discourses of young people, what they could do in the face of the adult society was only to rebel or escape with their bodies. Thus, in view of young people's discourse construction of their experiences, gender specific and family based interventions are recommended to work with ‘youth-at-disadvantage’ in outreaching social work service in Hong Kong.

Doença de Alzheimer e a aplicação de diferentes tarefas discursivas

Pessoas com doença de Alzheimer apresentam dificuldades discursivas evidentes que demandam avaliação e intervenção. Para tanto, é necessário compreender as diferentes demandas de distintas tarefas discursivas. Este artigo revisa os principais estudos sobre o discurso de pessoas com doença de Alzheimer, descrevendo o desempenho discursivo dessa população em tarefas discursivas classificadas de acordo com os estilos de input fornecidos. São descritos estudos que propuseram o uso de tarefas com input neutro, conversações naturalísticas, input diretivo e facilitador e tarefas com figuras (narrativa e descrição). São discutidas as diferenças entre as tarefas discursivas, abordando habilidades discursivas afetadas e preservadas na doença de Alzheimer. São feitas considerações sobre a investigação e as aplicações clínicas das diferentes tarefas discursivas para a avaliação e a intervenção da comunicação de pessoas com doença de Alzheimer.

Memory at Issue: On Slavery and the Slave Trade among Black French

The issue of memory has drawn a great deal of attention in the social sciences. In France, in keeping with a sociological tradition that deems the nation-state and the dominant groups to be those worthy of study, the literature is essentially made up of studies of either national memory or of the memories of people of European descent. Perhaps the memory of black French people, especially in the emblematic issue of the slave trade and slavery, is the least investigated among studies of memory in France. Yet, concurrently with the recent effort of black French to appropriate this chapter of their past, beginning in 1998 with their commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the second abolition of slavery in territories under French jurisdiction, social scientists have begun to reflect on this commemorative dynamic. This article examines the mnemonic entrepreneurship and discourses of people of African descent in mainland France through the remembrance of slavery and the slave trade. The author argues that the memory claims of black French are part of an autonomous political entrepreneurship whose ultimate objective is the recovery of humanity for black people.

The Hindi Film's Romance and Tibetan Notions of Harmony: Emotional Attachments and Personal Identity in the Tibetan Diaspora in India

In this article, Tibetans in the diaspora in India are shown to be engaged in emotional processes that connect very different themes of their lives. Their attachment to both Tibetan moral notions and Indian popular cultural representations is theorised with reference to emotional attachment as appropriation into the sense of what belongs with oneself. Both normative Tibetan moral notions and aspirational Indian popular-cultural representations are appropriated by Tibetans born and raised in India. On the one hand, Tibetan moral notions of harmonious relationships present generally salient norms for Tibetans, and are connected to polyandry and idealised representations of Tibet in older people's discourse. On the other hand, Indian popular film and television are ubiquitous in Tibetan everyday life. The ethnography presented demonstrates that Indian popular culture has helped to shape Tibetan diasporic aesthetics and historicity and provides an idiom for ideas and practices of love, romance and marriage for younger Tibetans in India.