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Question Use in Adults With Right-Hemisphere Brain Damage
Jamila Minga1,2, Davida Fromm3, ClarLynda Williams-DeVane4
1Communication Disorders Program, Department of Allied Professions, North Carolina Central University, Durham.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research : JSLHR
|March 11, 2020
Summary
Adults with right-hemisphere brain damage (RHD) ask different questions than healthy adults. They use more content questions and fewer polar questions, potentially due to cognitive communication impairments from RHD.
Area of Science:
- Neurolinguistics
- Cognitive Science
- Communication Disorders
Background:
- Right-hemisphere brain damage (RHD) impacts pragmatic communication, affecting information gathering.
- Question-asking is a key communicative strategy for information acquisition.
- Different question types vary in their cognitive demands.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate differences in question-asking strategies between adults with RHD and neurologically healthy adults.
- To test the hypothesis that RHD affects the types of questions used during a structured communication task.
Main Methods:
- Participants included adults with RHD and healthy controls from the RHDBank Database.
- The Unfamiliar Object Task from the RHDBank Discourse Protocol was used.
- Video-recorded interactions were transcribed and analyzed using Computerized Language Analysis.
Main Results:
- Significant differences were found in question types used between groups.
- The RHD group used more content questions and fewer polar questions compared to controls.
- Adults with RHD disproportionately used 'what' questions within the content question category.
Conclusions:
- Question-asking patterns differ in adults with RHD, reflecting pragmatic communication impairments.
- Reduced polar question use and increased content question use may indicate cognitive limitations associated with RHD.
- Further research is needed to confirm and expand upon these findings in RHD populations.