An analysis of topics and vocabulary in Chinese oral narratives by normal speakers and speakers with fluent aphasia.
Sam-Po Law, Anthony Pak-Hin Kong, Christy Lai
PMID 28703645WHAT IT FOUND
Cantonese speakers with fluent aphasia and matched controls used many of the same important-event topics.
The aphasia group produced fewer different words, but their word classes and concrete/abstract balance looked similar. The finding points to broader vocabulary targets beyond nouns and verbs.
Key findings
01Speakers with fluent aphasia and controls overlapped on 12 of 21 important-event topics, covering 75% of aphasia narratives and 83% of control narratives.
02Controls produced 1530 different words and speakers with fluent aphasia produced 1048, with 450 words in common; verbs and nouns were the largest word classes.
03Abstract nouns and verbs were used at comparable percentages by both groups: 33.3% nouns and 58.1% verbs in the aphasia group, and 37.6% nouns and 58.6% verbs in controls.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study analysed existing language samples, not a treatment, so it cannot show that any therapy method improves communication. Only speakers with fluent aphasia were included, so the profiles may not apply to people with non-fluent aphasia. All samples came from one Cantonese database and one personal-narrative task, so they may not represent everyday conversation or all Cantonese-speaking clients. Many colloquial Cantonese words had no frequency count, so the analysis substituted the closest standard written forms. The aphasia group showed large individual variation in the number of unique nouns and verbs, so group averages may not describe each client.
Declared interests
The authors report no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the therapy suggestions as tested results. The study compared language samples from people with fluent aphasia and controls, and did not test a treatment, so it cannot show that changing word targets improves communication.