Conversation analysis in TBI

Question 1

Describe CA

Answer 1

• primarily an approach developed in sociology
• data is commonly spontaneous conversation at home with SO
• primarily a qualitative approach ie looking for patterns across different people with the same disorder to establish how the disorder impacts on aspects of conversation

Question 2

What were the findings of Mann et al (2015)

Answer 2

• notable turn is known-answer qs from CP (attempts to get them to communicate by asking them things they know the answer to)
• questions may be used by CP to initiate and maintain convos - seems laboured and needs much work from CP (TBI doesnt respond, minimal response, disaffiliative approach

Question 3

What did Denman & Wilkinson (2011) find about qs?

Answer 3

• put TBI on spot to answer now
• require certain action in talk
• TBI needs to have enough cognitive and linguistic abilities which they can draw on quickly to produce a relevant answer
• proposals may be diff as TBI may find it difficult to or not want to sign up at that moment

Question 4

What were the findings of Body and Parker (2005)?

Answer 4

• topic bias/repetitiveness common problem in TBI

Question 5

What are the possible reasons for topic repetitiveness?

Answer 5

• driven to safe topics
• difficulty generating alternatives
• insensitive to others needs

Question 6

What were the findings of Frakel and Penn (2007)?

Answer 6

Examined perseveration in two people with TBI talking to health care professionals.
Speaker AA
- Recurrent perseveration - the inappropriate occurrence of part or all of a previous response after a different intervening response
- affects aspects of AA’s topic behaviour eg topic initiation and maintenance
- displayed topic bias
Speaker PB
- Stuck-in perseveration - inappropriate maintenance of a framework of response after introduction of a new task
- difficulty in changing/shifting topic

Question 7

What did Frankel and Penn (1997) link topic difficulties to?

Answer 7

• different patterns of neurological deficit
• AA - significant interference control deficit with poor resistance to distraction
• PB - normal interference control but poor behavioural inhibition

Question 8

What were the findings of Denman and Wilkinson (2011) on inappropriate behaviour?

Answer 8

• Inappropriate behaviour by Richard in form of touching women
• Touching always part of a turn at talk, not occurring in isolation
• Touching was linked not to physical opportunity as much as to a social/interactional opportunity
• Intervention could focus on assisting Joan to cut down on opportunities Richard has to appeal to her about these kinds of issues

Question 9

Describe Penn and Cleary’s study (1988)

Answer 9

• looked at TBI compensatory strategies
• direct reported speech, short conversational turns, and pronominalisation (use of semantically vague linguistic forms) noted

Question 10

What were the findings of Barnes (2012)?

Answer 10

• CP also adapts coms
• paul has difficulty in remembering details to do with his daily activities
• Ted noticeably structures the planning discussion in ways which might be slightly unusual in non-TBI conversation
• Paul has a role in planning his own trip here, but Ted is strongly structuring and leading this planning talk
• presumably due to his view that Paul needs this scaffolding to think through the issues, and also to write certain key bits of information in his diary