Cognition and discourse production in right hemisphere disorder

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-2005

Publication Title

Journal of Neurolinguistics

Keywords

Right hemisphere disorder, Discourse production, Cognition

ISSN

0911-6044

Volume

18

Issue/No.

6

First Page

461

Last Page

477

Abstract

This study sought preliminary relationships between discourse deficits and cognitive abilities in persons with right hemisphere disorder (RHD). Seven participants with RHD were matched with a non-neurologically impaired control group. One narrative and two procedural samples were elicited: the story of Cinderella and two procedural discourse samples based on familiar tasks. Macrostructural and microstructural measures of the discourse samples were correlated to cognitive domain scores achieved on a cognitive assessment, the Cognitive Linguistic Quick Test (CLQT [Helm-Estabrooks, N. (2001). Cognitive Linguistic Quick Test. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation]).

Two-tailed t-tests indicated that there were no statistically significant differences in cognitive scores between the RHD and control groups, nor were there differences in discourse measures between the two groups on either procedural task. The narrative production task yielded significant group differences on four measurements—CIU, CIU/minute, total main concept points, and number of absent main concepts. Within the RHD group, there were correlations between the attention, clock drawing, and visuospatial domains of the cognitive measure and narrative measures.

The results of this study indicated that although there were no significant differences between the two groups on the cognitive measure, the RHD group produced insufficient narratives. Narrative discourse appears to be a sensitive context in which to pursue the exploration of cognitive–discourse relationships in RHD.

DOI

10.1016/j.jneuroling.2005.04.001

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Peer Reviewed

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