Speech and language researchers and health professionals alike strive to measure communication abilities using relevant and psychometrically sound tools. Discourse measures are potential tools which reflect everyday communication more accurately than other more traditional measures. However, time has been a significant barrier for clinicians trying to use these measures in routine practice. This paper describes novel methods of discourse analysis that do not require such time intensive transcription methods. Analysing discourse by identifying how effective the gist of a concept is explained (main concept analysis), investigating the typicality of words (core lexicon) and efficiency by which information is conveyed (content units per minute) were used to examine discourse samples (from written, audio and video samples) from 206 people with stable aphasia, 17 people with primary progressive aphasia and 15 people participating in aphasia rehab. By comparing measures from health controls, this paper provides the first normative data using this analysis method. This approach requires further validation before it can be used routinely but it holds promise. It is also important that a clinical important measurement of discourse is undertaken. It is known that many measures, such as this, are either too distal or too proximal to the discourse interventions being delivered. Future work in the area of discourse analysis should focus on relevance to people living with communication difficulties.
Counting up discourse
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