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Collaborative Referencing Between Individuals With Aphasia and Routine Communication Partners
Abstract
H. H. Clark (1992) argues that successful referencing depends on speakers and listeners working together to establish shared perspectives on target objects. In his collaborative referencing model, he identifies 3 phases in the referencing process: initiation, refashioning, and acceptance. For referencing tasks, successful collaboration can be seen in the streamlining of referencing expressions and in the decrease of overt collaborative effort across trials. Although previous studies have shown that speakers with aphasia can be successful on referencing tasks, they have not examined how that success is achieved through the collaborative work of the partners. Using a referencing task adapted from H. H. Clark and D. Wilkes-Gibbs (1986), this study examined how 4 adults with moderate-to-severe aphasia collaborated with routine communication partners (spouses or children). Overall, these pairs completed the referencing task trials with 96% accuracy and displayed referencing processes that generally conformed to Clark's collaborative referencing model. Close analysis of the discourse of these interactions revealed patterns of collaboration that went beyond Clark's model-the pairs used diverse verbal and nonverbal resources, actively negotiated the task across trials, and layered their own personal goals and perspectives onto these interactions. This study highlights the plasticity of functional communication (the diversity of ways the pairs worked together to complete the same task) and points to the importance of understanding processes of tacit learning that take place in social interactions.
... To study how individuals with aphasia collaborate during a referencing task, Hengst (2003Hengst ( , 2006) adapted Clark's barrier task as a game-like protocol using the distributed communication framework. She included familiar communication partners and used a partial barrier (to allow the use of verbal and non-verbal resources by blocking only the view of the boards). ...
... Examples included head nods for "yes", leaning forward, laughing/singing, drawing in the air, etc. The overall use of non-verbal resources across trials was measured, and its reduction along with the reduction of use of words, turns, and time was indicative of reduced collaborative effort (Hengst, 2003). However, questions about how people with aphasia initiate referencing when primarily using hand gestures (or when spoken language is significantly impaired) and how do those references change over time remain unclear. ...
... Findings from the overall use of gesture types in NCG and CG conditions provided us with the preliminary data to support the analysis of the simplification of the initiating referencing expressions. We adapted Hengst's (2003) definitions of the eight types of initiating referencing expressions to incorporate the pair's use of co-speech hand gestures during referencing. This adapted classification is termed multimodal initiating referencing expressions (MIRE) and defined as verbal expressions and/or hand gestures that are used to initiate referencing. ...
Background: Collaborative referencing tasks have evolved from historically being used as experiments to study human interactions in various disciplines, to being adapted as a clinical intervention for individuals with cognitive-communication disorders such as aphasia. For both neurotypical adults and adults with cognitive-communication disorders, evidence on successful referencing is heavily based on spoken language data. The patterns of collaborative referencing in individuals with severe spoken language impairments who extensively use hand gestures for communication remain unclear. Aims: We aimed to investigate the patterns of collaborative referencing between Clyde, an individual with severe Wernicke’s aphasia using co-speech hand gestures, and a clinician-partner during the collaborative referencing intervention (CRI). Methods & Procedures: This case study included 15 CRI sessions between Clyde and the clinician-partner. Each session consisted of a photo-matching game in which the pair completed six trials with alternating turns to describe and match treatment cards over a low barrier. Data analysis included (a) measuring the mean card placement accuracy; (b) measuring the mean length of CRI trials; and (c) analysing the frequency and type of hand gestures used in no common ground and common ground conditions, and then examining if the multimodal references (i.e., labels for treatment cards produced using verbal expressions and hand gestures) simplified across CRI sessions. Outcomes & Results: Largely, the results were consistent with previous evidence on CRI: the pair scored 99.63% mean card placement accuracy and completed each trial in shorter time periods, indicating reduced collaborative effort. During the no common ground condition, the pair used a high frequency of hand gestures and a variety of gesture-type combinations to reference each card, while they used a low frequency of hand gestures dominated by iconic gestures in the common ground condition. The multimodal references were found to be simplified across sessions by the shift from using indefinite to definite verbal references, and reduced frequency and specific (iconic) types of hand gestures. Conclusions: Despite severe spoken language impairments, speakers and partners can develop common ground for successful collaborative referencing by effectively using hand gestures. Clinical implications including the role of clinicians in being a skilful and multimodal communication partner and the rich communicative environment offered by CRI will be discussed.
... However, Prior's traci~g of cross-modal chains of reformulations (from text to multiparty talk-around-text and back to revised text) also allowed for analysis of the different ways disciplinary representations were presented in talk and text as well as the ways text dialogically quoted and paraphrased talk, al~ost never explicitly. The other of us (Hengst, 2003) has traced a senes of representations by individuals with aphasia interacting with a routine communication partner (typically a spouse or chi~d) over a series of game-like barrier task trials (matching ~ngram or picture cards across a barrier). In these data, participants displayed complex reformulations as they directed each other in identifying and placing the cards. ...
... As a verbal, make-believe world, Cindy Magic focused our attention on the participants' use of reformulations in talk (primarily linguistic and paralinguistic resources) to manage the shifting indexical grounds of the play world and the family chore. The next data set, examining the discourse practices of individuals with aphasia and their routine communication partners (see Hengst, 2003; Hengst eta/. 2005), shifts our attention to the rich cross-modal reformulations that are also part of everyday interactions. ...
... The example presented below is taken from a research interview with Ethel (a 21-year-old woman with aphasia) and her husband, Barnie. As part of a larger study of discourse and aphasia (see Hengst, 2003), the semi-structured interview, conducted by Hengst, focused on Ethel and Barnie's communication practices, and specifically how they played a barrier task game. The 21-turn excerpt below is taken from the beginning of the interview -Hengst began the interview with general comments about how well they did in the barrier game. ...
... The other participant, however, showed no improvement in communicative efficiency (the non-responder participant DO). Given that CADL score is a reliable predictor of success in conversational interaction (Holland, 1980;Ramsberger & Rande, 2002), it was hypothesised that the observed changes in communicative effectiveness in SA corresponded to changes in the gestural components of communication while conveying information in a ''partial barrier'' Referential Communication Task (RCT; Carlomagno, Santoro, Menditti, Pandolfi, & Marini, 2005;Feyereisen et al., 1988;Hengst, 2003). The rationale for using the RCT is that the participant's task goal is to converse about each referent picture, such that another participant (the addressee) is able to recognise it among distractors. ...
... The rationale for using the RCT is that the participant's task goal is to converse about each referent picture, such that another participant (the addressee) is able to recognise it among distractors. Furthermore, although the ''partial barrier'' format blocks the reciprocal visibility of each partner's work space, the participants may rely on non-verbal resources (e.g., gestures) to optimise effective referencing (Feyereisen et al., 1988;Hengst, 2003;Carlomagno, Santoro, et al., 2005). It was therefore thought that this type of RCT might provide a unique opportunity for investigating the role of gestures in the communication of adults with severe fluent aphasia in a conversational setting. ...
... Before analysing the two participants' gestural aspects of communication, a control analysis verified the examiner's role in the four RCT assessments. Unlike traditional aphasia tests, in RCT speakers and addressees are engaged in the process of meaning construction, and referencing is negotiated through interaction between the two partners (Hengst, 2003). Thus, the feedback provided by the examiner during the RCT goes beyond the simple confirmation or correction of the patient's referencing attempts, and it likely takes on multiple communicative functions. ...
Unlabelled:
This post hoc study investigated coverbal gesture patterns in two persons with chronic Wernicke's aphasia. They had both received therapy focusing on multimodal communication therapy, and their pre- and post-therapy verbal and gestural skills in face-to-face conversational interaction with their speech therapist were analysed by administering a partial barrier Referential Communication Task (RCT). The RCT sessions were reviewed in order to analyse: (a) participant coverbal gesture occurrence and types when in speaker role, (b) distribution of iconic gestures in the RCT communicative moves, (c) recognisable semantic content, and (d) the ways in which gestures were combined with empty or paraphasic speech. At post-therapy assessment only one participant showed improved communication skills in spite of his persistent language deficits. The improvement corresponded to changes on all gesturing measures, suggesting thereby that his communication relied more on gestural information. No measurable changes were observed for the non-responding participant-a finding indicating that the coverbal gesture measures used in this study might account for the different outcomes. These results point to the potential role of gestures in treatment aimed at fostering recovery from severe fluent aphasia. Moreover, this pattern of improvement runs contrary to a view of gestures used as a pure substitute for lexical items, in the communication of people with severe fluent aphasia.
Learning outcomes:
The readers will describe how to assess and interpret the patterns of coverbal gesturing in persons with fluent aphasia. They will also recognize the potential role of coverbal gestures in recovery from severe fluent aphasia.
... Drawing on interactional sociolinguistic perspectives of discourse and sociohistoric theories of language-in-use, Hengst (2003) examined collaborative referencing in aphasia. To optimize communicative success, Hengst adapted Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs' (1986) controlled experimental protocol by using familiar partners, alternating the role of director, using a partial barrier to allow nonverbal and verbal communicative resources, and increasing the number of referential opportunities (four sessions of six trials) and targets (multiple sets of stimuli). ...
... To optimize communicative success, Hengst adapted Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs' (1986) controlled experimental protocol by using familiar partners, alternating the role of director, using a partial barrier to allow nonverbal and verbal communicative resources, and increasing the number of referential opportunities (four sessions of six trials) and targets (multiple sets of stimuli). These modifications allowed Hengst (2003; to show that communicative pairs managing aphasia displayed the reduction in overt collaborative effort, but also that by preserving the emergent nature of social interaction, pairs drew on more complex and diverse referential practices (e.g., contextualized histories, verbal play, nonverbal references) not observed (or reported) by Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs and/or not afforded by the more controlled experimental protocol. ...
... Consistent with sociocultural approaches to intervention (cf. Ylvisaker & Feeney, 1998) which view communicative practice as fully integrated with learning, the study was designed to preserve the dynamic aspects of social interaction permitted by the Hengst (2003) protocol (e.g., partial barrier, familiar partners) while maintaining the experimental control afforded by the Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs protocol (e.g., stable participant roles and stimuli across trials). ...
In previous work we reported robust collaborative learning for referential labels in patients with hippocampal amnesia, resulting in increasingly rapid and economical communication or "common ground" with their partners [Duff, M. C., Hengst, J., Tranel, D., & Cohen, N. J. (2006). Development of shared information in communication despite hippocampal amnesia. Nature Neuroscience, 9(1), 140-146]. The current paper reports the results of discourse analysis, describing the communicative resources and practices used in extended, repeated collaborative interactions, as partners successfully referenced the target cards, managed the task itself, and engaged in non-task talk. Although amnesic pairs showed a normal rate of reduction across trials in the number of words and time-to-completion, their communicative effort was higher overall, particularly the discourse associated with task management, they exhibited a general lack of flexibility in their referential expressions, and they showed a number of striking differences in use of personal and communal knowledge and of multiple perspectives. The interactive sessions provided a potent learning environment, but also a very challenging task in the face of memory impairment. The results give insight into the acquisition of common ground and the manner in which amnesic patients accommodate their memory deficits during real-world interactions, and they have significant implications for memory intervention.
... Whereas Hutchins analyzed functional systems to track the distributed nature of cognition, we focus here on distributed communication (Hengst, 2003(Hengst, , 2015(Hengst, , 2020Hengst & Duff, 2007;Hengst et al., 2016). As Clark (1992) argued, communicative interactions are fundamentally collaborative accomplishments, like shaking hands or paddling a two-person canoe, and referential sense (i.e., situated meaning) is negotiated in the moment based on people's specific historical experiences (what Clark called "common ground"). ...
... ties, as they assemble functional systems to achieve goals in particular sociomaterial environments. Situated discourse analysis has already contributed to a line of novel and theoretically significant analyses of communicative interactions of individuals with acquired cognitive and communication disorders, including aphasia, amnesia, dementia, and TBI (e.g., Duff et al., 2006Duff et al., , 2008Duff et al., , 2009Duff et al., , 2013Gupta et al., 2011Gupta et al., , 2012Hengst, 2003Hengst, , 2006Hengst, , 2010. That research has also begun to be translated to the development of a specific clinical intervention, the CRI (Devanga et al., 2020;Hengst et al., 2008Hengst et al., , 2010, and to the identification of a novel learning model for clinical interventions, rich communicative environments (Hengst, 2020;Hengst et al., 2019). ...
This theoretical review article describes situated discourse analysis (SDA) and explores its implications for communication sciences and disorders. Drawing on situated theories of cognition and communication, SDA aims to understand real-time communicative processes of people engaging in complex sociocultural activities in specific sociomaterial environments. For SDA, discourse points first to the multimodal processes, not the products, of communicative interactions people engage in, and recognizes that these processes are fundamentally complex, distributed, and emergent. The article begins by defining SDA and describing four theoretical principles that guide this approach. We illustrate ways SDA might alter and advance theory, research, and clinical practice by considering its application to understanding the use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technologies by adults with neurogenic communication disorders and their routine partners. We then explore empirical evidence from a methodologically diverse set of cases. The first considers Mialet's (2012) ethnographic study of Stephen Hawking and his use of AAC technologies, which highlights the complex, distributed, and emergent nature of situated discourse. We turn then to our clinical experiences, reflecting on what we have learned from our clients who have creatively repurposed technologies to remediate their activities and to mediate successful interactions and situated learning. Finally, we discuss a participatory design research project that used SDA as a guide for the innovative design of PIMs, pseudo-intelligent mediators (i.e., devices that sense the environment and act as active agents to mediate interactions). We conclude the article with a discussion of ways SDA contributes to and advances our research and clinical practice.
... Social and emotional cognitive processes, such as theory of mind, have also been implicated in common ground, as interlocutors must be able to understand the thoughts and feelings of one another in order to create and update a " model " of what is known by the other person, and use this information to construct appropriate and effective references (Clark, 1992; Krauss & Fussell, 1996). An ongoing program of research in our laboratory has been exploring the cognitive mechanisms and neural substrates of common ground, using a collaborative referencing paradigm adapted from Clark and colleagues (Clark, 1992; Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs, 1986) and Hengst (2003). The paradigm requires participants to verbally direct a familiar communication partner how to arrange a set of 12 abstract tangrams across 24 trials while separated by a low barrier, which hides their workspaces and tangrams but allows them to see each other. ...
... After identifying each initial description, the use of a definite reference in each description was coded. Using a previously developed coding protocol (Duff et al., 2011a;) based on Hengst (2003), each initial description was coded as an indefinite (e.g., looks like an angel; it's got a big triangle) or definite referential expression (e.g., the barn; kicker; the dragon reading a book; the one reclining in the chair with his feet stickin' out). While definite references were typically signaled by the use of definite articles (the) this was not always the case. ...
During conversation, interactants draw on their shared communicative context and history ("common ground") to help decide what to say next, tailoring utterances based on their knowledge of what the listener knows. The use of common ground draws on an understanding of the thoughts and feelings of others to create and update a model of what is known by the other person, employing cognitive processes such as theory of mind. We tested the hypothesis that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a neural region involved in processing and interpreting social and emotional information, would be critical for the development and use of common ground. We studied seven patients with bilateral vmPFC damage and seven age-, sex-, and education-matched healthy comparison participants, each interacting with a familiar partner. Across 24 trials, participants verbally directed their partners how to arrange a set of 12 abstract tangram cards. Our hypothesis was not supported: the vmPFC and healthy comparison groups showed similar development and use of common ground, evident in reduction in time and words used to describe the cards, similar increases in the use of definite references (e.g., the horse), and comparable use of verbal play (playful language) in their interactions. These results argue against the idea that the vmPFC is critical for the development and use of common ground in social interaction. We propose that a cognitive and neuroanatomical bifurcation in theory of mind processes may explain this outcome. The vmPFC may be important for affective theory of mind (the ability to understand another's feelings); however, the development and use of common ground in social interaction may place higher demands on the ability to understand another's knowledge, or cognitive theory of mind, which may not require the vmPFC.
... Through nuanced variations in the pronunciation of "yes" and "no" and his use of bodily movements, Rob ably guides his conversation partners toward the intended meaning. This case study aligns with other research findings that highlight the ability of many individuals with aphasia to successfully adhere to conversational turntaking norms (Hengst, 2003;Rhys et al., 2013). Olness and Ulatowska (2017) argue that individuals with aphasia can represent factual information about people, places, and things, thereby demonstrating their possession of narrative and referential coherence. ...
In the philosophy of language, there are many ongoing controversies that stem from relying too heavily on an utterance-based framework. The traditional approach of rigidly partitioning the utterance’s meaning into what is grammatically determined from what is not may not fully capture the complexity of human language in real-world communicative contexts. To address this issue, we suggest shifting focus toward a broader analysis level encompassing conversations and discourses. From this broader perspective, it is possible to obtain a more integrated view of how linguistic and extra-linguistic aspects dynamically interact and thus reconsider semantics/pragmatics dichotomy as complementary dimensions. Meaning is not confined to linguistic structures alone but emerges from the dynamic interplay of words, sociocultural knowledge, discursive situations, and psychological dispositions of speakers. Substantiating this perspective calls for embracing an interdisciplinary approach that synthesizes research from various domains, including linguistics, cognitive psychology, and philosophy of language. This paper focuses on a particularly compelling case study: aphasia. Speeches produced by individuals with aphasia represent complex scenarios where the balance between linguistic and extra-linguistic aspects is notably compromised, often to the former’s detriment. Aphasics’ productions represent a vivid example of how the interpretation of speeches can be far from involving fixed and static operations. Instead, it entails continuously reallocating cognitive resources toward the most readily available and accessible sources for the speakers. This case study ultimately demonstrates that the influence of semantic and pragmatic processes in shaping and conveying meanings displays remarkable adaptability, continuously adjusting to the ever changing demands placed upon speakers.
... Like neurologically healthy controls, people with aphasia have been shown to use increasingly fewer turns and shorter, more simplified references during a collaborative referencing task with familiar conversation partners (Hengst, 2003;Meuse & Marquardt, 1985). This supports the idea that people with aphasia can rely on common ground and produce increasingly shorter, less complex utterances to refer to 'given' information during an interaction. ...
Aphasia is an impairment of language caused by acquired brain damage such as stroke or traumatic brain injury, that affects a person’s ability to communicate effectively. The aim of rehabilitation in aphasia is to improve everyday communication, improving an individual’s ability to function in their day-to-day life. For that reason, a thorough understanding of naturalistic communication and its underlying mechanisms is imperative. The field of aphasiology currently lacks an agreed, comprehensive, theoretically founded definition of communication. Instead, multiple disparate interpretations of functional communication are used. We argue that this makes it nearly impossible to validly and reliably assess a person’s communicative performance, to target this behaviour through therapy, and to measure improvements post-therapy. In this article we propose a structured, theoretical approach to defining the concept of functional communication. We argue for a view of communication as “situated language use”, borrowed from empirical psycholinguistic studies with non-brain damaged adults. This framework defines language use as: (1) interactive, (2) multimodal, and (3) contextual. Existing research on each component of the framework from non-brain damaged adults and people with aphasia is reviewed. The consequences of adopting this approach to assessment and therapy for aphasia rehabilitation are discussed. The aim of this article is to encourage a more systematic, comprehensive approach to the study and treatment of situated language use in aphasia.
... Videos of treatment sessions were transcribed in full by trained research assistants using a three-pass consensus procedure adapted from Hengst (2001Hengst ( , 2003. Transcripts visually represent all participants' spoken language and vocalizations (e.g., laughing and whining from the dog) as well as gestures and actions (e.g., participants entering/ leaving room) judged by transcriber to be significant to the interaction. ...
Purpose
This study continues our research examining the use of animal-assisted therapy (AAT) for patients with acquired neurogenic communication disorders. AAT pairs an animal/handler team with a licensed therapist during sessions to target discipline-specific goals. Our original study focused on dog/handler teams paired with occupational and physical therapists during inpatient rehabilitation sessions. We documented multiple ways that AAT enriched the communicative environment, increasing the amount, complexity, and voluntariness of patient participation. This study focuses on speech-language pathology sessions, comparing communicative environments during AAT and traditional sessions. We also examined the speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') experiences in learning to plan for and target communication goals for patients during AAT sessions.
Method
This interpretive design combines ethnographic methods with participatory action research. We recruited 10 patients from an inpatient rehabilitation unit and two SLPs. We video-recorded 20 speech-language pathology sessions (one AAT and one traditional for each patient) and conducted 26 interviews. We consulted with SLPs on how to incorporate AAT into their treatment during their preparation time and used self-report measures to track changes in their planning time and confidence across the 6-week study.
Findings
Across participants, AAT sessions provided richer communicative environments than traditional speech-language pathology sessions as measured by participant talk time, mean length of turns, and use of interactional discourse resources such as narrative use and playful language. The SLPs were rapidly able to adapt their clinical practice to incorporate AAT and displayed rapid and marked decreases in their initial planning time and increases in confidence.
Conclusion
AAT sessions created meaningful, rich, and complex communicative environments in a clinical space for participants to align with others around a shared interest.
... For example, people with aphasia and highly familiar conversational partners may develop collaborative strategies that assist word retrieval (e.g. Hengst, 2003). If context can influence successful word retrieval, it could be questioned whether the removal of a natural context in picture naming assessments risks over-or under-estimating an individual's level of impairment. ...
Purpose: Picture naming assessments are one of the most common methods of examining word retrieval in aphasia. However, currently, it is unclear whether these assessments are able to accurately predict word retrieval in “real-life” communication. This paper aims to explore the evidence in the current literature regarding the relationship between picture naming and word retrieval in connected speech in people with aphasia.
Method: Literature was reviewed that examined the correlation between picture naming and word retrieval in connected speech. The literature search was limited to articles that were English language, participants with aphasia, and that were not therapy studies.
Result: The existing studies showed mixed findings. However, comparison of study outcomes was complicated by inconsistency in the research methods used, including in word retrieval measures and connected speech elicitation.
Conclusion: While there is some evidence of a relationship between picture naming and word retrieval in connected speech, correlation outcomes were mixed with possible influences from participant characteristics, assessment method and speech sample type. We therefore suggest that clinical decision-making would benefit from supplementing picture naming tests with an analysis of word retrieval in connected speech. Further research is required with a focus on natural conversation and the development of standard testing procedures for connected speech.
... In addition, semistructured interviews were transcribed in Microsoft Word by an undergraduate research assistant using line-by-line methods for adult interviews and sequential methods for child interview; the latter allowed more detailed representation of nonverbal aspects of communication (Hengst, 2003). Next, the first author (V. ...
Purpose
This mixed-methods study examined the effect of a supports-based intervention on the interactions between John, a 9-year-old minimally speaking autistic student with access to a speech-generating augmentative and alternative communication device, and nonautistic peers in the classroom.
Method
We used a single-case experimental ABAB design to evaluate the relation between provision of social supports and the frequency of communicative offers between John and one nonautistic peer, Ethan. In addition, we integrated interview data and situated discourse analyses involving a variety of adult and child participants to illustrate the nature of peer interactions both before and during provision of social supports.
Results
In summary, visual inspection of the single-case data supported a functional relation of moderate effect size between the provision of social support and an increased frequency of communicative offers between John and Ethan. Results from the discourse analysis suggested that social supports led to the (a) emergence of completed turns across peers, (b) flexible use of multimodal communicative resources, and (c) movement toward egalitarian interactions.
Conclusions
This study is one of the first to provide experimental evidence for a supports-based approach to peer interactions involving a minimally verbal autistic student. Clinical implications focus on encouraging flexible multimodality and adopting a strength-based approach that fosters autistic sociality.
... Theoretically, the CRI flips the script on traditional approaches to naming therapy by targeting pairs' flexible collaboration around referencing personally meaningful targets. The CRI reflects the recognition that referencing is not simply a process of rote recall from stable stores of linguistic forms but, instead, is a collaborative, situated activity people engage in as they use, seek, and build common ground in interactions to converge on a specific referent (e.g., Clark, 1992;Hanks, 1990;Hengst, 2003). Moreover, referencing is a motivated process, not an end in itself. ...
Purpose
The feasibility of a collaborative referencing intervention (CRI) for adults with chronic aphasia has been documented in two descriptive case studies (Devanga, 2014; Hengst et al., 2010, 2008). The current Phase II mixed-methods treatment study replicates the CRI with four additional participants (using interpretive research) and investigates how it impacts a traditional measure, participants' confrontational naming abilities, outside of game play (using multiple-probe single-case experimental design).
Method
Four adults with chronic aphasia participated in the study composed of (a) three preparatory sessions, (b) five baseline sessions, (c) 15 CRI sessions with five treatment probes, and (d) six maintenance sessions. A collaborative confrontation naming (CCN) probe (i.e., dependent variable) was administered in each baseline, treatment probe, and maintenance session. Each CRI session (i.e., independent variable) consisted of a photo-matching game with participant and clinician partner taking alternative turns identifying and matching personally relevant treatment cards. CCN probes were scored using a multidimensional rating scale. Fidelity and social validity were also assessed.
Results
Replication of the CRI showed successful and consistent referential learning in all four participant pairs. The multiple-probe analysis of CCN revealed a positive treatment effect on naming in three participants indicating that the CRI was efficacious. High fidelity was maintained throughout the study. Social validity interviews revealed positive outcomes and significant impacts of treatment on the participants' lives.
Conclusion
The CRI demonstrates strong clinical implications for adults with chronic aphasia. Future research exploring the treatment effectiveness and the implementation to a variety of clinical settings is warranted.
... All interviews were video-recorded via camcorder, except for the interviews from John's mother, which were audio-recorded only based on her preference. Interviews were transcribed in Microsoft Word using line-by-line methods in the case of adult participants and sequential methods (Hengst, 2003) for child participants. This sequential method, though more laborious, captures more contextual information, which is particularly helpful for interpreting meaning in children with limited verbal capabilities. ...
... All interviews were video-recorded via camcorder, except for the interviews from John's mother, which were audio-recorded only based on her preference. Interviews were transcribed in Microsoft Word using line-by-line methods in the case of adult participants and sequential methods (Hengst, 2003) for child participants. This sequential method, though more laborious, captures more contextual information, which is particularly helpful for interpreting meaning in children with limited verbal capabilities. ...
Purpose
The present clinical focus draws on an intrinsic case study to provide a thick description of the communication profile of John, a 9-year-old minimally verbal autistic student.
Method
Specifically, traditional behavioral assessments, classroom video observations, and semistructured interviews were used to gather information regarding John's communication profile and potential sensory–motor differences.
Results
Convergent evidence indicated that John's expressive profile was characterized by single words, emergent word combinations, some conventional gestures, and a low frequency of communicative initiations. Concomitant language comprehension challenges and poor intelligibility associated with motor speech impairment were also indicated. His sensory–motor profile was marked by fine motor impairment, relative strengths in gross motor abilities, and sensory differences across visual, hearing, and tactile modalities.
Conclusion
Direct implications for supporting minimally verbal autistic students like John include the need to (a) consider sensory–motor influences on social interaction and (b) support flexible use of multimodal communication resources, including augmentative and alternative communication.
Supplemental Material
https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.12202448
... Theoretically, the CRI flips the script on traditional approaches to naming therapy by targeting pairs' flexible collaboration around referencing personally meaningful targets. The CRI reflects the recognition that referencing is not simply a process of rote recall from stable stores of linguistic forms but, instead, is a collaborative, situated activity people engage in as they use, seek, and build common ground in interactions to converge on a specific referent (e.g., Clark, 1992;Hanks, 1990;Hengst, 2003). Moreover, referencing is a motivated process, not an end in itself. ...
... Each video was transcribed verbatim and in full-including identifying information-through a two-pass process. Transcription conventions and guidelines were developed by the research team and/or drawn from established resources (e.g., Hengst, 2003;Miller & Long, 2005;Simmons-Mackie & Damico, 1999), and they were piloted on available vlog entries over a 6-month period to maximize ease of use, agreement across transcribers, and representation of important linguistic and paralinguistic features of the videos. Table 2, which transcribers used for quick reference, presents the abbreviated version of the transcription conventions and guidelines implemented in the study. ...
Purpose
The goal of this study was to expand the field's understanding of autism through the analysis of 1st-person perspectives from autistic video webloggers (vloggers).
Method
This study analyzed the representation of autism in 39 YouTube videos authored by self-identified autistic individuals and published between 2007 and 2015. Consistent with the cross-disciplinary tradition of narrative inquiry, thematic analyses of the video transcripts were conducted.
Findings
Vloggers were predominantly, but not exclusively, White male adults who spoke mainstream American English and self-identified as experiencing Asperger's syndrome. Key findings included (a) the predominance of a narrative about autism that incorporated features of both the medical model of disability and the neurodiversity paradigm to varying degrees, (b) a trend toward more medical model features across most content areas, and (c) a relatively high prevalence of neurodiversity paradigm features related specifically to language use and the description of autistic traits.
Conclusions
Implications include the need for clinicians to (a) familiarize themselves with the varying views of autism held within the autistic community, (b) reflect on the language used to talk about autism and listen to how clients and/or their caregivers talk about it, and (c) consider the exploration of potential positive dimensions of autistic traits.
... Gernsbacher and Givón (1995) emphasized that coherence is a property emerging during speech production as well as comprehension, allowing a listener/reader to reconstruct discourse as a reader/writer had it in mind, or the mental representation of it. Studies on conversation in aphasia focused on the ability of people with aphasia to co-construct meaning in communication through the analysis of such phenomena as turn-taking, repair strategies, collaborative referencing, and the effects of aphasia severity, conversation partner, topic, and other potential factors on discourse production (e.g., Damico, Oelschlaeger, & Simmons-Mackie, 1999;Ferguson & Harper, 2010;Hengst, 2003;Linebaugh, Kryzer, Oden, & Myers, 2006;Perkins, 1995Perkins, , 2003. Different grammatical patterns were discovered in aphasic informal conversation compared to monologues or picture-induced discourse Wilkinson, Beeke, & Maxim, 2010). ...
Discourse production is crucial for communicative success and is in the core of aphasia assessment and treatment. Coherence differentiates discourse from a series of utterances/sentences; it is internal unity and connectedness, and, as such, perhaps the most inherent property of discourse. It is unclear whether people with aphasia, who experience various language production difficulties, preserve the ability to produce coherent discourse. A more general question of how coherence is established and represented linguistically has been addressed in the literature, yet remains unanswered. This dissertation presents an investigation of discourse production in aphasia and the linguistic mechanisms of establishing coherence.
... Not only does the presence of a communicative context directly influence comprehension and production processes during communication, PWA can also use information that was discussed earlier during interaction to build common ground with their conversation partners. Like non-brain damaged controls PWA have been shown to use increasingly fewer turns and shorter, more simplified references during a collaborative referencing task with 965 familiar conversation partners (Hengst, 2003;Meuse & Marquardt, 1985). This supports the idea that PWA can rely on common ground and produce increasingly shorter, less complex utterances to refer to 'given' information during interaction. ...
There is a growing realization that the traditional approach to studying language, i.e. as a decontextualized,linguistic phenomenon, does not allow us to fully understand communication in the real world. Bystudying the way people process words and sentences in isolation, a wealth of variables that play a role innaturalistic communication are missed. In the study of aphasia, a language impairment caused by acquiredbrain damage such as stroke, a thorough understanding of the mechanisms of naturalistic communicationis imperative, as this is the behaviour therapy aims to improve. The field of aphasiology currently lacksa comprehensive, theoretically founded definition of communication. This lack of understanding, we willargue, makes it nearly impossible to accurately describe a person’s level of communicative ability in everydaylife as well as to predict with certainty what kind of intervention will lead to a change at the levelof communication. In this article we propose a model of situated language use borrowed from sociology,psychology, communication sciences and psycholinguistics, which covers both internal (e.g. individual) andexternal (e.g. environmental) factors that influence communication, including the traditional linguisticskills that have been extensively researched in the past. The model defines language use as: (1) interactive,(2) multimodal, and (3) based on context (common ground). An extensive review of existing researchon each component of the model in non-brain damaged adults and people with aphasia is provided. Theconsequences of adopting this approach to diagnosis and therapy for aphasia are discussed. The aim of thisarticle is to encourage a more systematic approach to the study of situated language use in aphasia.
... Notes were discussed in the following weekly lab meeting, and six examples were selected by team consensus as the most clear, concise, and compelling. All six selected examples were transcribed through multiple passes by two undergraduate research assistants using a sequential, rather than a turn-by-turn, system that incorporated key nonverbal forms of communication, such as eye gaze and gesture (Hengst, 2003). The second author (CE) utilized these transcripts in conjunction with repeated viewings of the associated videos in order to complete microanalyses of all six behavioral interpretation examples (Greathead et al., 2016;Ratcliff, 2003). ...
Purpose
The study examined the nature and potential impact of a relatively novel clinician strategy, behavioral interpretation, on peer interactions involving an autistic child.
Method
This extended qualitative analysis reviewed 49 instances of a clinician using behavioral interpretation as part of a music education program. The program was designed to facilitate peer interaction across a 7-year-old autistic child. Aaron, and 4 of his nonautistic peers from the same classroom. After reviewing the 21 video-recorded sessions, the research team selected the most salient examples of behavioral interpretation for microanalyses.
Findings
By focusing on a detailed review of the 6 most clear, concise, and compelling examples, we found that behavioral interpretation took 2 forms aimed at helping explain an unclear behavior: narrating (e.g., “I see you looking at strings”) and offering possible meanings (e.g., “I think he wants you to play guitar”). After limited exposure to behavioral interpretation, peers began displaying similar patterns of interaction that drew attention and speculation regarding Aaron's nonverbal forms of communication.
Conclusions
Behavioral interpretation, a relatively undocumented strategy in the autism literature, appeared as a feasible and promising strategy for shaping egalitarian peer interaction. Important nuances regarding the implementation and limitations of this strategy are also discussed.
... In Example C, three male group members collaboratively narrated the story line of a movie that they all knew, about a family trapped inside a stalled car by a rabid dog. This collaborative and coherent referencing and evaluation of events in a jointly told narrative is reminiscent of collaborative referencing between individuals with aphasia and their routine communication partners in situated communication, as described in the literature (Hengst 2003). 38 There is a striving for mutual understanding among the interlocutors as a form of cooperative activity (Klippi 2003;Goodwin 2003) that evidences their pragmatic ability to adhere to Grice's Cooperative Principle. ...
Aphasias are a family of language impairments. They are associated with focal damage to the neurological networks that support language and that are typically localized to the left cerebral hemisphere. This chapter examines the pragmatic abilities of people who have aphasia. Component, perspectivist and functional views of pragmatics are each considered, for their influence on the operationalization of pragmatic ability in aphasia. The chapter adopts a functional view of pragmatics, which assesses situated discourse produced by people with aphasia for its coherence, as a primary index of pragmatic ability. Specifically, samples of personal narratives told by people who have aphasia – both elicited personal narratives in monologue and personal narratives naturally embedded in conversation – are assessed for their referential and evaluative coherence. Natural reactions and responses of interlocutors to the situated narratives told by narrators with aphasia provide converging evidence for the pragmatic ability of the narrators. Examination of the samples suggests that coherence is intentionally and collaboratively developed by narrators with aphasia through a dynamic integration of linguistic content and contextual sources of meaning-making. This narrative coherence is interpreted as a manifestation of the pragmatic competence of people who have aphasia.
The full reference for the published work is:
Olness, G. S., & Ulatowska, H.K. (2017). 'Aphasias’, in L. Cummings (ed.), Research in Clinical Pragmatics, Series: Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, Vol. 11, pp. 211–242. Cham, Switzerland: Springer-Verlag. ISBN: 978-3-319-47487-8 (hardcover); 978-3-319-47489-2 (eBook) doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-47489-2_9
... Studies on conversation in aphasia focused on the ability of PWA to co-construct meaning in communication through the analysis of phenomena such as turn-taking, repair strategies, collaborative referencing, and the effects of aphasia severity, conversation partner, topic, and other potential factors on discourse production. (e.g., Beeke, Maxim, & Wilkinson, 2007;Damico, Oelschlaeger, & Simmons-Mackie, 1999;Ferguson & Harper, 2010;Hengst, 2003;Linebaugh, Kryzer, Oden, & Myers, 2006;Perkins, 1995;Perkins & Goodwin, 2003). Different grammatical patterns were discovered in aphasic informal conversation compared to monologues or picture-induced discourse Wilkinson, Beeke, & Maxim, 2010). ...
Background: Discourse abilities play an important role in the assessment, classification, and therapy outcome evaluation of people with aphasia. Discourse production in aphasia has been studied quite extensively in the last 15 years. Nevertheless, many questions still do not have definitive answers.
Aims: The aim of this review is to present the current situation in the research on a number of crucial aspects of discourse production in aphasia, focusing on methodological progress and related challenges. This review continues the discussion of the core themes in the field, aiming to render it as up-to-date as possible.
Main Contribution: The review focuses on a number of unexplored theoretical issues, specifically, the interface between micro- and macrolinguistic abilities, and the relationship between linguistic competence and communicative success in aphasia. The emphasis on theoretical challenges, along with the thorough discussion of methodological problems in the field, makes this review a starting point and a comprehensive information source for researchers planning to address language production in people with aphasia.
Conclusion: Although the picture is not yet complete, recent advancements lead to a better understanding of the processes involved in aphasic discourse production. Different approaches provide insights into the complex multifaceted nature of discourse-level phenomena; however, methodological issues, including low comparability, substantially slow down the progress in the field.
... First, each excerpt was transcribed through multiple passes by two undergraduate research assistants using a sequential, as opposed to turnby-turn, transcription system designed to display all participants and the overlapping use of both verbal and nonverbal resources (see Hengst, 2003). Next, the first author (LD) reviewed these transcripts in conjunction with repeated viewings of the related video footage, often frame-byframe, to create the descriptive narrative presented under discourse analysis. ...
Using a social-ecological framework, this case study examined communicative competence through classroom interactions involving Aaron, a preschool-age child with autism who utilized an augmentative and alternative communication device (AAC). In addition to Aaron, participants included Aaron's father, the school director, classroom teachers, a paraprofessional, and 17 of Aaron's preschool classmates. The present analyses relied on ethnographic data collected by Russell and Valentino (2013)—specifically, five observations of classroom activities involving Aaron, one of which was video recorded, and six semistructured interviews of adult participants. Our extended analyses included a categorical analysis focused on communicative offers to and from Aaron as recorded in observational field notes and a new situated discourse analysis of the video-recorded small group activity. Together results revealed three key components of communicative competence: (a) presumed competence, (b) flexible multimodality, and (c) synchronized repetition. Implications focus on how to conceptualize and support communicative competence for children who use AAC from a social-ecological framework.
... Conversation is a coconstructed activity in which participants negotiate important social actions and work to help each other understand with as little effort as possible (Clark & Wilkes-Gibbs, 1986;Milroy & Perkins, 1992). Research repeatedly affirms that communication is a collaborative achievement (Goodwin, 1995(Goodwin, , 2003Hengst, 2003;Hengst, Frame, Neuman-Stritzel, & Gannaway, 2005;Klippi, 1996;Oelschlaeger & Damico, 1998aSimmons-Mackie, Kingston & Schultz, 2005). Social roles are established and maintained through interactive cooperation (Brumfitt, 1993;. ...
... This redesign included a partial barrier to allow nonverbal as well as verbal communication, a greater number of referencing opportunities, and use of familiar partners (e.g., a family member). Our research has found that participants display creative language use and robust learning-evidenced across trials by pairs' completion of the task, decreased overt collaboration around identification of cards, and development of more concise labels (Duff, Hengst, Tranel, & Cohen, 2006, 2009Hengst, 2003Hengst, , 2006. That our barrier task protocol was effective in promoting rapid and robust learning, even in patients with severe declarative memory impairments, suggests that these collaborative sessions constitute a powerful learning environment. ...
Background: Clinical aphasiologists have long attended to repetition in aphasia classification and used it in treatment. Within traditional approaches, repetition has been conceptualised narrowly as the ability to produce relatively immediate, verbatim reproductions of target behaviours; treatment protocols have relied heavily on drill, eliciting client repetition of targets. In sharp contrast, sociocultural theories conceptualise repetition as a fundamental, pervasive feature operating at every level of language use. Repetition thus includes partial and paraphrased as well as verbatim repetitions, across time as well as immediate. These theories also stress the communicative functions of repetition. With respect to learning, sociocultural theories emphasise the way such loosely structured, diverse patterns of repetition emerge in, and are prompted by, repeated engagement in meaningful activities.
Aims: This study (1) presents a sociocultural approach to repetition in conversation; (2) illustrates that approach through analysis of a clinician–client pair's repeated productions of labels for 30 target cards during a 10-session pilot treatment; and (3) offers detailed examples of how the pair's repeated engagement with target cards across sessions might support learning.
Methods & Procedures: This study utilises situated discourse analysis of a pilot barrier task treatment (10 sessions) in which the clinician and client (a 67-year-old man, with mild anomia and severe amnesia) worked together as partners to identify and place target cards. At the end of each session researchers interviewed the clinician–client pair to identify their agreed-upon target labels (ATL) for the cards. Analysis of card label repetition included: (1) identification of all verbal labels used for target cards during game play; and (2) coding labels as matching or not matching the ATL, and as either a first or repeated use of that label during that sequence.
Outcomes & Results: Analysis confirmed that repetition was pervasive. The client–clinician pair routinely repeated their own or each other's referencing expressions during the task, collaboratively developing specific, meaningful, and increasingly succinct labels from chains of conversational repetition (within, between, and across trials). Critically, this repetition occurred without clinician-directed repetition of isolated treatment targets.
Conclusions: This examination of repetition suggests that marshalling conversational repetition through repeated engagement offers a theoretically and empirically grounded framework for reconceptualising language intervention. Furthermore, memory research offers useful guidance in understanding the role of repetition across multiple types of learning, which we propose can guide SLPs in when to deploy drill-based and/or conversational repetition to best achieve specific treatment goals.
... Our coding system for collaborative referencing, Clark's (1992) system as adapted by Hengst (2003), provides a systematic means of capturing various levels of confidence for shared knowledge in the discourse of individuals with cognitive-communication disorders. Its sensitivity to the accommodating productions of the healthy partners leads us to suggest that its clinical utility should be explored as a framework for conceptualising the clinician's role during conversationally based diagnostic and intervention protocols—e.g., dialogic cuieng hierarchies or scaffolding that moves from joint description, to episodic and elementary productions. ...
Background: Definite references signal a speaker's belief that a listener can uniquely identify the referent (e.g., the dog, as the only dog among a group of animals). Clark's (1992 Clark, H. 1992. Arenas of language use, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. [Google Scholar]) collaborative referencing model provides a way to examine the speaker's display of confidence that his/her reference will be understood by the listener without further clarification. We previously found that amnesia participants, as directors in a barrier task with a familiar partner, used referencing forms that displayed less confidence than forms used by comparison participants. If this is an interactional consequence of managing the memory impairment (as opposed to a language deficit), we should also expect a decrease in definite referencing by their partners.
Aims: To examine the use of definite references by healthy non-brain-damaged participants when speaking to their memory-impaired partner during repeated trials of a barrier task.
Methods & Procedures: We replicated our previous work with 11 of the same participant pairs—6 individuals with hippocampal amnesia and 5 comparison participants—each of whom was paired with a familiar partner of their choosing. Focusing on the productions of the partners (i.e., partners became directors) we (1) coded referential expressions as definite or indefinite; (2) tracked changes in the use of indefinite and definite references across trials; and (3) compared data to previous analyses (when amnesia participants were directors).
Outcomes & Results: The productions of comparison pairs were overwhelming definite (95%, 1359). In sharp contrast, partners of the amnesia participants used a definite initiating reference less than half the time (48%, 825), when speaking to their memory-impaired partner and used definite references that signalled a lack of confidence more often and across more trials.
Conclusions: These findings support the assumption that disruptions in language-and-memory-in-use are not limited to the productions of the individuals with amnesia, but rather extend to the discourse of their communication partners. Observing disruptions in the use of definite references of individuals with intact language and declarative memory, when communicating with their partner with amnesia, points to the complex interaction of memory and language. Even when attention is paid to grammatical forms, the decisions are never linguistic alone.
... This yielded a total of 3,440 initiating references (1,724 for amnesic pairs and 1,716 for comparison pairs). The 3,440 initiating references were coded as definite (e.g., " the camel, " " the dragon reading a book, " " the one reclining in the chair with his feet stickin' out, against the tree " ) or indefinite (e.g., " looks like a couple of hills, " " it has a diamond at the top of the figure " ; see Hengst, 2003). As these examples suggest, definite references were often marked linguistically with definite articles (the), but this was not always the case. ...
Language function in patients with impaired declarative memory presents a compelling opportunity to investigate the inter-dependence of memory and language in referential communication. We examined amnesic patients' use of definite references during a referential communication task. Discursively, definite references can be used to mark a referent as situationally unique (e.g., "the game," as in the case of a recently publicized game) or as shared information (e.g., "the game," as in one discussed previously). We found that despite showing normal collaborative learning after repeated referring-as indexed by consistent and increasingly efficient descriptive labels for previously unfamiliar tangram figures-amnesic patients did not consistently use definite references in referring to those figures. The use of definite references seems to be critically dependent on declarative memory, and the engagement of such memory is signaled by language.
... The present study failed to analyse thoroughly the partner's role in communication because we choose to use a single matcher keeping a standardized attitude. Thus, the design did not enable us either to observe conversational repairs and improvements of communicative efficiency through partner's interventions or to analyse the influence of shared knowledge, as Hengst (2003) did in her study of communication about familiar referents by persons with aphasia conversing with relatives. Lastly, the task could be simplified to alleviate sources of interference in the interval between two presentations of the same figure. ...
Disordered discourse in cases of senile dementia of Alzheimer's type (DAT) has mainly been described in conversation and picture description tasks. The referential communication task provides researchers and clinicians with new insights on the nature of these disorders.
To study to what extent persons suffering from DAT can benefit from shared experience through trial repetition to achieve common reference.
Thirteen persons suffering from DAT at minimal or mild stage (MMSE score range = 18-27) were compared with 13 healthy elderly adults (64-86 years) in neuropsychological assessment of executive functions and in a referential communication paradigm. To study how the two partners achieve mutual understanding by progressively elaborating a common ground, the task was repeated three times.
Persons with DAT produced a larger number of words than control participants and they benefited from the task repetition. However, they were less able to take into account previously shared information, used no definite referential expressions and were more idiosyncratic in their descriptions of the referent. This decline of communicative effectiveness was found not to relate closely to executive deficits.
Collaborative exchanges allow healthy elderly persons to ground reference in common experience. This process is severely disturbed in persons with DAT, in relation to poor memory of preceding episodes or to other cognitive impairments.
... This redesign included a partial barrier to allow nonverbal as well as verbal communication, a greater number of referencing opportunities, and use of familiar partners (e.g., a family member). Our research has found that participants display creative language use and robust learning-evidenced across trials by pairs' completion of the task, decreased overt collaboration around identification of cards, and development of more concise labels (Duff, Hengst, Tranel, & Cohen, 2006, 2009Hengst, 2003Hengst, , 2006. That our barrier task protocol was effective in promoting rapid and robust learning, even in patients with severe declarative memory impairments, suggests that these collaborative sessions constitute a powerful learning environment. ...
Grounded in sociocultural theories of language development and use, this paper explores the concept of dialogic voice. Building on the term 'dialogue', dialogic voice points to the fundamentally social nature of language-in-use. From this perspective, language emerges from specific histories and thus carries the multiple voices of previous speakers. People draw on these voices to think about and represent the world, communicate with others, construct their own identities, and engage in play. Prior (2001) identified three key dimensions of dialogic voicing: typified social voices, re-envoicing others' words and acts, and personalized voice.
To present a theoretical framing for dialogic voice; to detail the dimensions of dialogic voice; and to offer a preliminary analysis of dialogic voicing in clinical discourse.
Data consisted of ten treatment sessions for a 67-year-old man with amnesia and aphasia, using a collaborative barrier task protocol. Discourse analysis and selective coding were used to identify the three dimensions of dialogic voice in both clinician and client utterances.
During this collaborative task, the client and clinician produced an array of voices, including: (1) typified social voices to display professional expertise, family identities, and shared interests; (2) re-envoicing others' words and acts in both task and non-task interactions; and (3) personalized voicing, displayed mostly in the client's discourse.
Attention to dialogic voicing offers a way to see and reflect on the heterogeneity of discourse and the multiple identities that clinicians and clients alike can, and do, display in clinical settings. Tracing the complex interplay of multiple voices provides us with insights into rich communicative environments that, from a sociocultural perspective, provide opportunities for initiating change in the communicative practices of clients, their communicative partners, and ultimately clinical practice itself.
Background
The complexity of communication presents challenges for clinical assessment, outcome measurement and intervention for people with acquired brain injury. For the purposes of assessment or treatment, this complexity is usually managed by isolating specific linguistic functions or speech acts from the interactional context. Separating linguistic functions from their interactional context can lead to discourse being viewed as a static entity comprised of discrete features, rather than as a dynamic process of co‐constructing meaning. The ecological validity of discourse assessments which rely on the deconstruction of linguistic functions is unclear. Previous studies have reported assessment tasks that preserve some of the dialogic features of communication, but as yet, these tasks have not been identified as a distinct genre of assessment. We suggest the term ‘co‐constructed communication’ to describe tasks which are specifically designed to capture the dynamic, jointly produced nature of communication within a replicable assessment task.
Aims
To identify and summarize how co‐constructed communication has been assessed with individuals with non‐progressive acquired communication disability regarding task design, measures and psychometric robustness.
Methods
A scoping review methodology was used to identity relevant studies. Systematic database searches were conducted on studies published before July 2021. Studies in the yield were assessed against eligibility criteria, with 37 studies identified as eligible for inclusion.
Main contribution
This is the first time that co‐constructed communication has been defined as a genre of discourse assessment for stroke and traumatic brain injury populations. Co‐constructed communication has been assessed for 144 individuals with aphasia and 111 with cognitive–communication disability. Five categories of co‐constructed communication tasks were identified, ranging in complexity. Variability exists in how these assessment tasks are labelled and measured. Assessment measures require further psychometric profiling, specifically regarding test–retest reliability and validity.
Conclusions
Co‐constructed communication is a discourse genre which offers researchers and clinicians a replicable method to assess language and communication in an experimentally rigorous way, within an ecologically valid context, bridging the gap between experimental and ecological assessment approaches.
What this paper adds
What is already known on this subject
Standardized assessments of language skills and monologue offer reliable, replicable ways to measure language. However, isolating language from an interactional context fundamentally changes the behaviour under study. This raises questions about the ecological validity of the measures we routinely use to determine diagnoses, guide treatment planning and measure the success of treatment.
What this study adds to the existing knowledge
This review highlights studies that conceptualize, and often quantify, interaction by combining experimental rigour and aspects of everyday dialogue. This is the first time this genre of discourse assessment has been identified. We propose the term ‘co‐constructed communication’ to describe this genre and provide an operational definition for the term.
What are the practical and clinical implications of this study?
Co‐constructed communication assessment tasks require refinement, particularly regarding aspects of psychometric robustness. In the future, these tasks offer pragmatic, meaningful ways to capture the effect and impact of aphasia and cognitive–communication disability within interaction.
This chapter explores various issues about agrammatism, aiming to identify a unifying factor that elucidates the underlying problems of aphasia. Due to impairments in functional categories and grammatical morphemes, individuals with aphasia adopt an “economy principle,” whereby they omit grammatical words and employ a reduced form of emergency language. This observation intertwines with contextualist theses in the philosophy of language. Notions such as “explicature”, “impliciture”, or “intuitive what is said” are undoubtedly valuable for illuminating how the features of the situational context can enrich and enhance poor language. The idea is that language disorders in aphasia create particular communicative needs which prompt listeners to integrate, complete, or modulate what is seriously compromised.KeywordsAgrammatismSub-sentential speechExplicatureFree enrichmentEllipsis
Transplantation of human brain organoids into nonhuman animals has the potential to advance our molecular understanding of human cognition. Yet hybridized nervous systems raise novel scientific and ethical questions that appear to be oriented toward opposing ends – as models become more sophisticated, ethical concerns become more salient. I posit that scientific and ethical challenges arising from interspecies human brain engraftment may be akin to ‘birds of a feather’ that are more entangled, rather than in tension. The scientific value of engrafted organoids depends on the extent to which they provide insights into human neurobiology, while ethical concerns tend to focus on the wellbeing of engrafted animals. Based on a synthesis of empirical and theoretical evidence from neuroscience and philosophical bioethics, respectively, I argue that scientific and ethical challenges converge on a shared interest in achieving the fullest possible maturation of the host animal. The conditions which are favorable to the wellbeing of animals are also consistent with factors that contribute to the elaboration of neuronal features during development and later behavioral traits. Treating engrafted animals as if they already possess higher moral status may, in fact, be necessary for them to develop the neuronal, cognitive, and behavioral traits that are most relevant to our understanding of the human brain. Studies have shown that enriched environments provide the conditions for neurons to mature, more fully, into neural circuits that contribute to complex behaviors, while supporting the wellbeing and individuation of animals. I conceptualize an ‘enriched’ approach toward research using interspecies brain engraftment and offer a case study examining how enriched environments can be used to study the neurobiology of human speech circuits in grafted animals. The uncertainties posed by interspecies brain engraftment illustrates how joint consideration of scientific and ethical perspectives can reveal convergent pathways for advancing human brain research.
Background:
Meaningful, varied, joyful conversation is an important therapy target for adults with language or cognitive-communication disorders following acquired brain injury (ABI). However, the complexity of daily communication is often reduced to component parts within intervention programmes, with mixed evidence of generalization to everyday conversation. Interventions targeting co-construction of communication within a dyad offer a structured way in which to retain and treat elements of everyday conversation for individuals and their communication partner (CP). Such interventions exist but they are variably labelled, target different ABI populations and have not been synthesized.
Aims:
To identify the nature, scope and effects of intervention studies targeting co-constructed communication in adults with ABI.
Method:
This systematic review was completed using PRISMA Guidelines. Six databases (MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Scopus, LLBA, PsychInfo) were searched and 1210 studies were screened. Data were extracted and studies were rated for methodological quality and completeness of reporting. Outcome measures and effects of treatment were collated through descriptive synthesis.
Main contribution:
This review highlights an emerging evidence base in relation to an intervention approach that targets everyday communication. Co-constructed communication interventions have been reported by 13 studies, from a total of 206 participants with post-stroke aphasia, traumatic brain injury and progressive language impairments. These interventions take a range of formats, including referential communication tasks, retell/recount therapies and communication training programmes. Methodological quality evaluation indicated mostly low-level study designs. Heterogeneity was identified in primary outcome measures, with 28 unique primary outcome measures reported across studies. Most studies demonstrated change in task-specific or broad communication outcome measures.
Conclusions:
Co-constructed communication interventions may offer clinicians a systematic, protocolized, replicable way to target everyday communication for adults with ABI. More high-quality, experimental designs with complete reporting and psychometrically sound outcome measures are needed to strengthen the evidence base.
What this paper adds:
What is already known on this subject Everyday conversation is an important therapy target for adults with ABI, but there is mixed evidence of therapy gains generalizing to everyday life. Many interventions reduce conversation to component parts such as naming or sentence construction. A different approach is needed to capture the social, dyadic, interactive and multifaceted nature of conversation. We propose the term 'co-constructed communication interventions' as a therapy genre targeting semi-structured dialogue. These interventions retain elements of everyday conversation (such as multimodal communication and situating tasks within dyads), combined with experimental elements (where stimuli prompt interactions and responses can be scored against normative data). What this paper adds to existing knowledge This review proposes and describes a distinct genre of discourse intervention within the current evidence base with a novel operational definition of 'co-constructed communication'. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Co-constructed communication interventions directly target elements of everyday communication by situating the therapy goals within a dyadic, interactive, multimodal task. A range of intervention tasks have been identified, including collaborative storytelling and problem-solving. This review will be of interest to clinicians working with adults with ABI; co-constructed communication interventions may offer a useful, replicable way to target aspects of everyday communication. This synthesis of the current evidence base encourages clinicians' informed, evidence-based decisions around these interventions.
Background
This is a qualitative case study of Sara, a 32-year-old black woman with nonfluent aphasia.
Aims
Based on critical disability theory and poststructuralist approaches, we analyse the relationship between speech-language therapy and labour inclusion as founded in normalcy expectations.
Methods and Procedures
The data were collected mainly at home and during therapy. The participants included Sara, her mother, her father, a speech-language pathologist, and a possible employer.
Main Contributions
Sara’s interactions are structured in spatial repertoires that assemble diverse elements into communication and not only linguistic structures. However, these assemblages do not represent accepted adult ways of communication, and therapy is focused on repairing broken linguistic skills for normalization as a requirement for labour inclusion. Sara’s therapy is a biopower practice that limits her possibilities for labour inclusion and life projects.
Conclusions
We reconceptualize the therapy as encuentros for collective dialogue and imagined communities’ emergence. This reconceptualization is a must for changing the field and participation patterns of people with aphasia in the society.
When we communicate, we alter our language and gesture based on the mutually shared knowledge – common ground – that we have with our listener. How memory supports these alterations remain unclear. We asked healthy adults and patients with hippocampal amnesia to engage in a referential communication task. Previous work suggests that common ground can be encoded by distinct memory systems; Amnesic patients show normal learning and referential label use as common ground increases, but inconsistently mark these labels with definite determiners (e.g., the vs. a windmill). Which memory systems support the ability to mark common ground via hand gesture? We found that gestures of both healthy participants and amnesic patients reflected common ground status. Both groups produced high gestures when common ground was lacking, and were less likely to do so as common ground increased. These findings suggest that gesture can reflect common ground status during conversation, potentially via non-declarative memory.
Purpose:
Research manipulating the complexity of housing environments for healthy and brain-damaged animals has offered strong, well-replicated evidence for the positive impacts in animal models of enriched environments on neuroplasticity and behavioral outcomes across the lifespan. This article reviews foundational work on environmental enrichment from the animal literature and considers how it relates to a line of research examining rich communicative environments among adults with aphasia, amnesia, and related cognitive-communication disorders.
Method:
Drawing on the authors' own research and the broader literature, this article first presents a critical review of environmental complexity from the animal literature. Building on that animal research, the second section begins by defining rich communicative environments for humans (highlighting the combined effects of complexity, voluntariness, and experiential quality). It then introduces key frameworks for analyzing and designing rich communicative environments: distributed communication and functional systems along with sociocultural theories of learning and development in humans that support them. The final section provides an overview of Hengst's and Duff's basic and translational research, which has been designed to exploit the insights of sociocultural theories and research on environmental complexity. In particular, this research has aimed to enrich communicative interactions in clinical settings, to trace specific communicative resources that characterize such interactions, and to marshal rich communicative environments for therapeutic goals for individuals with aphasia and amnesia.
Conclusions:
This article concludes by arguing that enriching and optimizing environments and experiences offers a very promising approach to rehabilitation efforts designed to enhance the reorganization of cognitive-communicative abilities after brain injury. Such interventions would require clinicians to use the principles outlined here to enrich communicative environments and to target distributed communication in functional systems (not the isolated language of individuals).
We first met “Larry Wilcox” in December, 1999, and learned something of him throughout 2000 and 2001, the two years during which we conversed with him, and on which we base this case study of reference and politeness in Alzheimer conversation. Some of our conversations were short and some were shorter — Wilcox was not loquacious. Indeed, staff in the Alzheimer’s unit at Pleasant Meadows, a private retirement and assisted living facility in Charlotte, NC, had initially wondered whether he could be sufficiently talkative with strangers to be a conversation partner. We were told that he was in his early 80s, diagnosed with probable Alzheimer’s Disease, no longer formally assessed, but in the process of moving from moderately severe to severe cognitive decline. We attempted to get a baseline for cognition by administering the Seven-Minute Screen (Solomon et al. 1998), but he stopped the test two-thirds of the way through, and refused for the rest of our acquaintance to participate in any interaction where the conversation partner carried notebooks or picture cards or asked content-seeking questions.
Aphasias are a family of language impairments. They are associated with focal damage to the neurological networks that support language and that are typically localized to the left cerebral hemisphere. This chapter examines the pragmatic abilities of people who have aphasia. Component, perspectivist and functional views of pragmatics are each considered, for their influence on the operationalization of pragmatic ability in aphasia. The chapter adopts a functional view of pragmatics, which assesses situated discourse produced by people with aphasia for its coherence, as a primary index of pragmatic ability. Specifically, samples of personal narratives told by people who have aphasia – both elicited personal narratives in monologue and personal narratives naturally embedded in conversation – are assessed for their referential and evaluative coherence. Natural reactions and responses of interlocutors to the situated narratives told by narrators with aphasia provide converging evidence for the pragmatic ability of the narrators. Examination of the samples suggests that coherence is intentionally and collaboratively developed by narrators with aphasia through a dynamic integration of linguistic content and contextual sources of meaning-making. This narrative coherence is interpreted as a manifestation of the pragmatic competence of people who have aphasia.
Reported speech, wherein one quotes or paraphrases the speech of another, has been studied extensively as a set of linguistic and discourse practices. Researchers agree that reported speech is pervasive, found across languages, and used in diverse contexts. However, to date, there have been no studies of the use of reported speech among individuals with aphasia. Grounded in an interactional sociolinguistic perspective, the study presented here documents and analyzes the use of reported speech by 7 adults with mild to moderately severe aphasia and their routine communication partners. Each of the 7 pairs was videotaped in 4 everyday activities at home or around the community, yielding over 27 hr of conversational interaction for analysis. A coding scheme was developed that identified 5 types of explicitly marked reported speech: direct, indirect, projected, indexed, and undecided. Analysis of the data documented reported speech as a common discourse practice used successfully by the individuals with aphasia and their communication partners. All participants produced reported speech at least once, and across all observations the target pairs produced 400 reported speech episodes (RSEs), 149 by individuals with aphasia and 251 by their communication partners. For all participants, direct and indirect forms were the most prevalent (70% of RSEs). Situated discourse analysis of specific episodes of reported speech used by 3 of the pairs provides detailed portraits of the diverse interactional, referential, social, and discourse functions of reported speech and explores ways that the pairs used reported speech to successfully frame talk despite their ongoing management of aphasia.
The purpose of this research is to develop structural equation model category managers on communication skills and cultural intelligence agencies had Isfahan Sports. Hence study was of structural equation modeling. The statistical population of this research formed the provincial sports administrators that according formal statistical was 550 people. Research sample size the sample of 207subjects was randomly selected. Cochran's sample size formula was used to determine. Measuring research and Communication Skills (0.81), Cultural Intelligence Scale (0.85) category manager's questionnaire (0.86), respectively. For analysis descriptive and inferential statistics SPSS and LISREL was used. Model results, communication skills, cultural intelligence and athletic directors classification of the fit was good (RMSEA=0.037, GFI= 0.902, AGFI= 0.910, NFT= 0.912). The prerequisite for proper planning to improve communication skills and cultural intelligence managers as influencing exercise essential while the authorial shave the right to choose directors analyst and intuitive strategies for management position shave because it looks better with the managers can be expected to exercise a clearer perspective.
Background: Linguists, sociolinguists, and anthropologists point to verbal play (e.g., rhyming, punning, teasing) as a pervasive communicative practice that crosses contexts, serves developmental and interpersonal functions, and foregrounds participants' metacommunicative awareness, as utterances must be framed as playful. Researchers investigating the communicative practices of persons with aphasia have yet to explore the presence and functions of verbal play.Data collection for this research was funded in part by a Mary Jane Neer Research Grant of the College of Applied Life Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign.I would also like to gratefully acknowledge the following student research assistants who assisted in data coding: Megan Phalen, Julie Schwenn, Vija Sidrys, Rita Szafranski, and Michelle Nolan.Aims: This study (1) presents a system for descriptively coding interactional forms, resources, and functions of verbal play; (2) documents verbal play in interactions of individuals with aphasia and partners; and (3) offers a close discourse analysis of a series of playful episodes.Methods and Procedures: Derived from a broader ethnographic study of individuals with aphasia and their routine partners, this exploratory study analysed 13 hours of videotape data obtained in four sessions with each of four pairs (an individual with aphasia and a partner) playing a game‐like barrier task. A grounded theory approach was used to develop descriptive codes, and those codes were used to support situated discourse analysis of playful episodes.Outcomes and Results: With 1005 playful episodes identified, verbal play was a pervasive practice for these pairs. Playful episodes were diverse in form and function, and their production was dynamic as participants drew on the evolving interactions, recycled playful themes, shifted in and out of playful frames, and managed multiple functions simultaneously.Conclusions: This analysis of the pervasive character of verbal play and the ongoing management of multiple frames highlights the complexity, heterogeneity, and distributed nature of situated communication. From a sociogenetic perspective, such rich, complex interactions could be a key ground for reorganisation of communicative practices and resources after aphasia, a theoretical and practical possibility of great interest to clinicians and researchers alike.
This article reviews literature in aphasia rehabilitation in the English-speaking world. Although attempts have been made to incorporate literature from other continents, the major bias is toward North America. Four themes are emphasised. They are (1) advances in neuroscience that have already realised influences in language rehabilitation and some that have potential influence for the near future; (2) effects on language rehabilitation that have resulted from the worldwide acknowledgment and acceptance of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF); (3) the growing emergence of psychosocial concerns in the management of aphasia; and (4) present and future applications of technology to aphasia rehabilitation. For the sake of manageability, the review is largely limited to the rehabilitation literature of the decade from 1998, and to published or in-press work that is programmatic in the sense that it represents more than a single publication.
Considerable effort has been directed at understanding the nature of the communicative deficits observed in individuals with acquired brain injuries. Yet several theoretical, methodological, and clinical challenges remain. In this article, we examine distributed cognition as a framework for understanding interaction among communication partners, interaction of communication and cognition, and interaction with the environments and contexts of everyday language use. We review the basic principles of distributed cognition and the implications for applying this approach to the study of discourse in individuals with cognitive-communication disorders. We also review a range of protocols and findings from our research that highlight how the distributed cognition approach might offer a deeper understanding of communicative mechanisms and deficits in individuals with cognitive communication impairments. The advantages and implications of distributed cognition as a framework for studying discourse in adults with acquired brain injury are discussed.
Collaborators generally coordinate their activities through communication, during which they readily negotiate a shared lexicon for activity-related objects. This social-pragmatic activity both recruits and affects cognitive and social-cognitive processes ranging from selective attention to perspective taking. We ask whether negotiating reference also facilitates category learning or might private verbalization yield comparable facilitation? Participants in three referential conditions learned to classify imaginary creatures according to combinations of functional features-nutritive and destructive-that implicitly defined four categories. Remote partners communicated in the Dialogue condition. In the Monologue condition, participants recorded audio descriptions for their own later use. Controls worked silently. Dialogue yielded better category learning, with wider distribution of attention. Monologue offered no benefits over working silently. We conclude that negotiating reference compels collaborators to find communicable structure in their shared activity; this social-pragmatic constraint accelerates category learning and likely provides much of the benefit recently ascribed to learning labeled categories.
Im Fokus des Interesses dieser Arbeit steht die Organisation der Partizipation an informellen und familiären Alltagsgesprächen unter 'aphasischen' Bedingungen.
Miteinander ins Gespräch kommen und miteinander im Gespräch bleiben ist konstitutiv für unsere Kultur und unabdingbar für die meisten sozialen Institutionen unserer Gesellschaft, für Parlamente und Arbeitsteams ebenso wie für Familien und Paare. Die Partizipation an Gesprächen ist für uns eine Selbstverständlichkeit. Eine Aphasie ändert dies schlagartig. Sie bewirkt eine Beeinträchtigung des kognitiven Subsystems Sprache und führt dazu, dass es den Betroffenen nicht mehr gelingt, die zu einem gegebenen Zeitpunkt notwendigen Wörter zu äußern, syntaktische Strukturen zu vollenden oder die sprachlichen Äußerungen ihrer Gesprächspartner zu verstehen. Alltägliche Aktivitäten wie Tischgespräche, Klatsch und Tratsch, Absprachen, Diskussionen usw. verlieren ihre Selbstverständlichkeit. Als Kommunikationshindernis und als Stigma prägt die Aphasie die Partizipation der Betroffenen am privaten und öffentlichen sozialen Leben.
Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit den Auswirkungen der aphasischen Sprachstörung auf den familiären Kommunikationsalltag. Im Fokus stehen die sprachlich-interaktiven Verfahren der Adaptation, die die Betroffenen in ihren alltäglichen Gesprächen einsetzen und entwickeln, um eine Partizipation der aphasischen Gesprächsteilnehmer trotz der Aphasie zu ermöglichen. Die Untersuchung zielt darauf ab, diese Verfahren zu beschreiben. Sprachlich-interaktive Adaptation wird als gemeinsame Leistung aller Beteiligten analysiert.
Als Datengrundlage dienen authentische Gespräche, die von den Betroffenen in ihrem häuslichen Kontext aufgenommen und dem von der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft geförderten Projekt "Adaptationsstrategien in der familiären Kommunikation zwischen Aphasikern und ihren Partnerinnen" (Prof. Dr. Peter Auer, Deutsches Seminar 1 Universität Freiburg 2000-2004)zur Verfügung gestellt wurden. Sie konzentriert sich auf die Aufnahmen zweier Familien, die mit sehr schweren Aphasien zu Recht kommen müssen.
Gearbeitet wird mit den Konzepten und Methoden aus verschiedenen interaktionsanalytischen Forschungsrichtungen, aus Goffmans Soziologie des Gesprächs, aus der ethnomethodologischen Konversationsanalyse und aus der interaktionalen Linguistik.
Ergebnisse: Die Untersuchung kann zeigen, dass das Aphasiemanagement im familiären Gespräch auf die Aufrechterhaltung der Interaktion und auf die Partizipation der aphasischen Partner ausgerichtet ist (spezifische adaptiertes Partizipationsmanagement). Sie beruht auf der prinzipiellen Kooperativität von Gesprächen. Sie macht von Partizipationsstrukturen wie assistiertem Erzählen, Duetten etc. Gebrauch, die durch eine spezifische Form der Kooperativität - die Kollaborativität - gekennzeichnet sind, und die wir auch aus Gesprächen Sprachgesunder kennen. Diese Partizipationsstrukturen werden in der aphasischen Interaktion an deren spezifische Bedingungen und Ziele adaptiert und mit multimodalen Praktiken des Partizipationsmanagements etabliert, um gemeinsames sprachliches Handeln zu ermöglichen. Darüber hinaus orientieren sich die Praktiken des Partizipationsmanagements aber auch an der rituellen Anforderungen der Interaktion, am face work im Goffmanschen Sinne.
Die Absicherung der Partizipation der aphasischen Ehemänner und Familienväter ist Teil des Bemühens, die Homöostase der innerfamiliären Kommunikation wieder herzustellen und entsprechend adaptierte Problemlösungsstrategien für eine innerfamiliäre community of practice zu etablieren.
Das Partizipationsmanagement wird als gemeinsame Aufgabe der Beteiligten realisiert (Prinzip der Kooperativität), wobei die sprachgesunden Ehepartnerinnen eine besondere Verantwortung übernehmen. Die Ehefrauen widmen ihren aphasischen Männern ein hohes Maß an Aufmerksamkeit, fungieren als Sprachrohr, Langzeit- und Arbeitsgedächtnis, als Moderatorinnen, Assistentinnen und face-Manager. Dadurch wird auch ihre eigene Partizipation am Gespräch geprägt.
This study investigated the ability of individuals with amnesia to acquire referential labels across a series of collaborative, dynamic interactions with a communication partner. Despite their inability to learn arbitrary relations in paired-associate learning, the amnesic patients showed remarkably robust collaborative learning across trials, at a rate equal to that of normal comparison subjects. The amnesic participants' learning resulted in their arriving at labels for a set of abstract shapes (tangrams), thus facilitating rapid and efficient communication. The labels generated and used by the amnesics during interactions with their partners became simpler across trials, with most labels stabilizing long before the end of training and then being used consistently throughout; moreover, they endured long after the task had ended. These findings have important implications for understanding the memory systems involved in semantic learning and in acquiring shared knowledge ('common ground') among communication partners, and the nature of hippocampal-dependent versus hippocampal-independent learning.
This study investigated the spontaneous verbal repetition of a person with aphasia during conversation. Research questions were: Does repetition occur as a spontaneous verbal behaviour? How is repetion effectively used? What are the motivations for its use? A person with aphasia and his wife video recorded eight of their naturally occurring conversations which were subsequently transcribed and sequenced into turns-at-talk. Frequency of repetition and the sequential organization of conversation sequences containing repetition were analysed. Repetition was a frequent behaviour, occurring an average of 8% of the time for all conversations. Repetition was effectively used to meet the social needs of the conversation relating to displays of uncertainty, agreement, alignment and acknowledgement. Motivations for repetition related to its use as a compensatory strategy to overcome specific language barriers and to establish perceptions of conversational proficiency.
Ethnographic modes of inquiry have had a long and distinguished history in the social sciences, especially in anthropology and sociology. Like all interpretive methods, ethnographic approaches are oriented to the study of meaning, but, in the case of ethnographic methods, meaning is understood to be constructed by culture--that is, by collectively shared and transmitted symbols, understandings, and ways of being. The recent renewal of interest in cultural psychology makes it timely to consider the nature of ethnographic methods, given the affinity of ethnography for problems in cultural psychology. An overview of the ethnographic method, as well as illustrations of the method in process, are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this book Gillian Brown draws on a wide range of examples of discourse analysis to explore the ways in which speakers and listeners use language collaboratively to talk about what they can see in front of them and about a series of events. She examines the conditions under which communication is successful, and the conditions under which it sometimes fails. The focus of her attention is upon the listener's role, as the listener tries to make sense of what the speaker says in a highly constrained context; her cognitive/pragmatic approach to discourse analysis both complements and challenges the sociological/anthropological perspectives on the subject which currently predominate. Gillian Brown is co-author of the well-known textbook Discourse Analysis (Cambridge University Press, 1983).
Introduction
What is the scope of phenomena that have to be taken into account in order to describe how gesture is organized as intelligible action in human interaction? Here it will be argued that gesture as meaningful action is accomplished not by a speaker's hand alone, but instead through the relevant juxtaposition of a range of different kinds of semiotic materials which mutually elaborate each other.
The present chapter will probe the range of phenomena relevant to the organization of a gesture by looking at a rather special situation. Because of a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of his brain, Chil is able to speak only three words (Yes, No, and And). However, he is able to supplement this vocabulary with limited gestures, and to understand much of what other people say. His gestures have none of the syntax or other language properties of a sign language. Indeed, like his vocabulary, they seem more sparse and restricted than the gestures of people without brain damage. Despite these very severe restrictions on possibilities for expression through language, he is nonetheless able to engage in complicated conversation. How is this possible? By embedding the semiotic field constituted through his gesture in the talk and action of his interlocutors, Chil is able to both say something relevant and negotiate its meaning. His gestures do not stand alone, but instead count as meaningful action by functioning as components of a distributed process in which he creatively makes use of the language produced by others.
Written in an informal style with engaging examples, this introduction to the study of language in context presents a provocative new approach to communicative practice. Emphasizing the dual status of language as linguistic system and as social fact, William Hanks offers fresh insights into the dynamics of context, the indeterminacy of cultural forms, and the relation between human experience and the making of meaning.Drawing on a broad range of theory and empirical research, Hanks explores the varieties of reflexivity in language, relating them to linguistic structure, textuality, and genres of practice. He shows how the human body both anchors the communicative process and provides a reference point for displaced and mediated speech. Tracing the movement of meaning through social fields and communities, Hanks casts new light on the ways that utterances are fragmented and objectified in social life. Speech emerges as a contingent process in which the production and reception of meaning are tied into multiple dimensions of time and context and history rests on the objectification of practice.Hanks's penetrating readings of classic works in linguistics, philosophy, and social theory are complemented by suggestions for further reading. Within the framework of communicative practice, he integrates elements of formal grammar and semiotics, phenomenology, cultural anthropology, and contemporary sociology. Neither a history nor a summary of the field, Language and Communicative Practices is a critical synthesis of the dialectics of meaning that inform all language and speech.
Luria's last work, summing up his contributions to the study of the psychology of language. Discusses his general philosophical approach and theoretical and empirical research, providing a concise account of how he applied his ideas to the developmental, cross-cultural, and clinical issues of language and cognition. Emphasizes the author's views on language and speech, and how they lead to a set of questions and procedures in empirical research. Also examines some of the general concerns of contemporary Soviet Psychology.
The teaching of qualitative analysis in the social sciences is rarely undertaken in a structured way. This handbook is designed to remedy that and to present students and researchers with a systematic method for interpreting qualitative data', whether derived from interviews, field notes, or documentary materials. The special emphasis of the book is on how to develop theory through qualitative analysis. The reader is provided with the tools for doing qualitative analysis, such as codes, memos, memo sequences, theoretical sampling and comparative analysis, and diagrams, all of which are abundantly illustrated by actual examples drawn from the author's own varied qualitative research and research consultations, as well as from his research seminars. Many of the procedural discussions are concluded with rules of thumb that can usefully guide the researchers' analytic operations. The difficulties that beginners encounter when doing qualitative analysis and the kinds of persistent questions they raise are also discussed, as is the problem of how to integrate analyses. In addition, there is a chapter on the teaching of qualitative analysis and the giving of useful advice during research consultations, and there is a discussion of the preparation of material for publication. The book has been written not only for sociologists but for all researchers in the social sciences and in such fields as education, public health, nursing, and administration who employ qualitative methods in their work.
The Ss in this experiment, working either singly (Monologue condition) or in pairs (Dialogue condition), attempted to solve a problem which required that they communicate information about four color chips. Sets of either Similar or Dissimilar colors were employed. The codability of colors (as measured both by name length and interpersonal agreement) was greater for colors in Dissimilar sets than for those in Similar sets. As measured by interpersonal agreement, but not name length, codability was greater in the Dialogue condition than in the Monologue condition. In addition, for both measures, the two independent variables interacted significantly. The results were discussed in terms of a model of interpersonal communication.
2 experiments are reported. In the first, pairs of children in kindergarten, first, third, and fifth grades played a communication game which required that they develop names to refer to unique graphic figures. In the second experiment, names which had been provided by Ss in Experiment I were given to adult Ss, who were asked to match the names to the figures which initially had elicited them. In Experiment I, all groups began at roughly the same level of communication accuracy, but the older Ss showed a rapid decrease in the number of errors over repetitive trials, while kindergartners' performance showed no improvement. In experiment II, the accuracy of adult Ss varied as a positive function of the age of the child who had provided the name. None of several lexical indexes applied to the names was related to the accuracy with which the name was responded to, irrespective of the speaker's age.
Twelve aphasic subjects were given a referential communication task. Channel use (oral or gestural) and efficiency (time to complete the task and intelligibility) were analysed in relation to the score obtained by the subject in a formal examination of ideomotor apraxia. Use of gestures was found to be negatively correlated with the severity apraxia score: more gestures were produced by the more apraxic subjects, who also suffered from more severe forms of aphasia. These messages were understood in a reasonable proportion of cases, so it is suggested that the spontaneous production of gestures can be used in therapy to establish efficient gestural communication.
Effective communication requires the speaker to take into account the knowledge and perspective of the listener. This skill was assessed using tasks requiring a listener to determine which of a series of designs was being described by a speaker. Adults communicated successfully, with initially long descriptions becoming shorter on successive trials. Nursery-school and kindergarten children gave brief idiosyncratic descriptions, resulting in many errors and no improvement with practice. Older children improved with practice but did not approach the adult level. It is suggested that when task demands are light, children engage in social, nonegocentric speech, but with increasing demands they become unable to use the social communication skills they possess. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Pairs of Ss interacted in a problem-solving task which required them to communicate about ambiguous figures. The length of the reference phrase for each figure was calculated. A negative relationship was found between the frequency with which a figure was referred to and the mean length of its reference phrase. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A CONSIDERATION OF 2 EXTREMES OF VERBAL ENCODING: NONSOCIAL OR UNEDITED COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL OR EDITED COMMUNICATION. SS (KINDERGARTNERS, 1ST, 3RD, AND 5TH GRADERS, AND COLLEGE STUDENTS) WERE PLACED IN 2-PERSON COMMUNICATION TASKS AS THE SPEAKER. THE DATA INDICATE THAT YOUNGER CHILDREN, IN ADDITION TO DISPLAYING LIMITED RESPONSE REPERTOIRES, FAILED TO EDIT. SOCIALLY APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR INCREASES WITH AGE. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This chapter explains why the notion of cultural practices has been appealing to developmental researchers and introduces the conceptual framework for the volume.
Two people talking, as at a crowded party, may try to conceal all or part of what they mean from overhearers. To do this, it is proposed, they need to build what they wish to conceal on a private key, a piece of information, such as an event mentioned in an earlier conversation, that is common ground for the two of them and yet not inferable by the overhearers. What they say must be designed so that it cannot be understood without knowledge of that key. As evidence for the proposal, pairs of friends were required, as part of an arrangement task, to refer to familiar landmarks while concealing these references from overhearers. As predicted, the two of them used private keys, which they often concealed even further by using certain collaborative techniques. Still, the two partners weren't always successul.
This paper proposes a collaborative model of repair in aphasic discourse, derived from the procedures of conversation analysis (CA). First, it is suggested that relative to other pragmatic orientations CA can offer a particularly illuminating and practically useful perspective on aphasic discourse. Repair strategies are then examined, first in relation to normal conversation then in relation to aphasic conversation' where one or more of the participants is aphasic. Next, Clark and Schaefer's CA-style model of conversational organization (1 987, 1989) is outlined, with attention to its relevance to the organization of repair in aphasic conversation. Finally, we apply this model in an analysis of some aphasic conversational sequences where the collaborative negotiation of repair is particularly evident.
When we think of the ways we use language, we think of face-to-face conversations, telephone conversations, reading and writing, and even talking to oneself. These are arenas of language useâtheaters of action in which people do things with language. But what exactly are they doing with language? What are their goals and intentions? By what processes do they achieve these goals? In these twelve essays, Herbert H. Clark and his colleagues discuss the collective nature of languageâthe ways in which people coordinate with each other to determine the meaning of what they say. According to Clark, in order for one person to understand another, there must be a "common ground" of knowledge between them. He shows how people infer this "common ground" from their past conversations, their immediate surroundings, and their shared cultural background. Clark also discusses the means by which speakers design their utterances for particular audiences and coordinate their use of language with other participants in a language arena. He argues that language use in conversation is a collaborative process, where speaker and listener work together to establish that the listener understands the speaker's meaning. Since people often use words to mean something quite different from the dictionary definitions of those words, Clark offers a realistic perspective on how speakers and listeners coordinate on the meanings of words. This collection presents outstanding examples of Clark's pioneering work on the pragmatics of language use and it will interest psychologists, linguists, computer scientists, and philosophers.
Nonaphasic and nonfluent, mixed, and anomic aphasic adults participated in a referential communication task in which they described pictures to a nonaphasic listener so that the listener could point to the picture being described from an array of four. Both aphasic and nonaphasic subjects were able to determine what information was crucial for identifying pictures and communicate that information to a listener. The major differences between nonaphasic and aphasic subjects were in efficiency and accuracy of communication. Nonaphasic and nonfluent aphasic subjects were more efficient in communicating information than mixed or anomic aphasic subjects were. Nonfluent aphasic subjects were as efficient as nonaphasic speakers in this respect. Aphasic subjects communicated significantly more inaccurate information than nonaphasic speakers did. However, no more than 5% of the information communicated by aphasic subjects was inaccurate. Finally, aphasic speakers modified their descriptions in response to apparent communication failure in the same way that nonaphasic speakers did.
In conversation, speakers and addressees work together in the making of a definite reference. In the model we propose, the speaker initiates the process by presenting or inviting a noun phrase. Before going on to the next contribution, the participants, if necessary, repair, expand on, or replace the noun phrase in an iterative process until they reach a version they mutually accept. In doing so they try to minimize their joint effort. The preferred procedure is for the speaker to present a simple noun phrase and for the addressee to accept it by allowing the next contribution to begin. We describe a communication task in which pairs of people conversed about arranging complex figures and show how the proposed model accounts for many features of the references they produced. The model follows, we suggest, from the mutual responsibility that participants in conversation bear toward the understanding of each utterance.
The purpose of this study was to investigate communicative effectiveness in aphasia. Five patients with Broca's aphasia and five neurologically normal subjects participated in referential communication and spontaneous conversation tasks. Performance on the referential tasks was used to derive measures of communication success, learning, and efficiency. A representative sample of utterances from the referential tasks and 100 utterances from the spontaneous conversation task also were analyzed to determine the frequency of operationally defined errors in speech, lexical access, grammar, content, discourse, and use. Results suggest that patients with Broca's aphasia retain communicative effectiveness in the presence of significant speech and language deficits and experimentally imposed constraints on the use of visual and gestural communication modalities.
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