Graduate Program

Communication Disorders and Sciences

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Semester of Degree Completion

2006

Thesis Director

Brenda Wilson

Thesis Committee Member

Rebecca Throneburg

Thesis Committee Member

Ronan Bernas

Abstract

Four adolescents with closed head injury (CHI) and four matched controls provided speaking and writing samples using the following four elicitation procedures: pictured activity description, story retelling, procedural narrative, and personal narrative. The purpose of the current study was to compare discourse performance according to various elicitation tasks for adolescent with CHI and matched controls using measures of productivity, efficiency, and coherence. Additionally, the relationship between cognitive skills and discourse performance was assessed.

Results indicated that there was a significant difference between the participants with CHI and controls for oral productivity during the story retelling task. During this task, the controls were more productive, or expressed more ideas, than participants with CHI while speaking. There also was a significant difference between the two groups for global coherence ratings during the oral picture description task. The control group had higher global coherence ratings when compared to participants with CHI while speaking. There were no significant differences according to mode of discourse for either group. There were no significant differences on either verbal working memory scores or reading times from the Stroop; however, these group differences did approach significance. Although there were no significant differences between the groups, the control group performed better during each task.

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