Citation

Lê K, Coelho C, Mozeiko J, Krueger F, Grafman J. Am. J. Speech Lang. Pathol. 2014; 23(2): S271-84.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association)

DOI

10.1044/2014_AJSLP-13-0095

PMID

24686463

Abstract

PURPOSE This study investigated the relationship between brain volume loss and performance on cognitive measures, including working memory, immediate memory, executive functions, and intelligence, and a narrative discourse production task. An underlying goal was to examine the prognostic potential of a brain lesion metric for discourse outcomes. It was hypothesized that brain volume loss would correlate with and predict cognitive and narrative discourse measures and have prognostic value for discourse outcomes.

METHODS 167 individuals with penetrating head injury participated. Correlational and regression analyses were performed for the percentages of total brain and hemispheric volume loss and scores on four cognitive (WMS-III Working Memory Primary Index and Immediate Primary Index, D-KEFS Sorting Test, and WAIS-III Full Scale IQ) and seven narrative discourse measures (T-units, grammatical complexity, cohesion, local/global coherence, story completeness, and story grammar).

RESULTS The volumetric measures had significant small-to-moderate correlations with all cognitive measures but only one significant correlation with the discourse measures.

FINDINGS from regression analyses were analogous but revealed several models that approached significance.

CONCLUSION Findings suggest that an overall measure of brain damage may be more predictive of general cognitive status than of narrative discourse ability. Atrophy measures in specific brain regions may be more informative.

Language: en