Narrative skills following traumatic brain injury in children and adults

Personal narratives serve an important function in virtually all societies (Peterson & McCabe, 1991). Through narratives individuals make sense of their experiences and represent themselves to others (Bruner, 1990). The ability to produce narratives has been linked to academic success (Feagans, 1982). Persons who have sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) are at risk for impaired narrative ability (Dennis, 1991). However, a paucity of information exists on the discourse abilities of persons with TBI. This is partly due to a lack of reliable tools with which to assess narrative discourse. The present study utilized dependency analysis (Deese, 1984) to document and describe the narrative discourse impairments of children and adults with TBI. Ten children (mean age 12;0) and 10 adults (mean age 35;2) were compared with matched controls. Dependency analysis reliably differentiated the discourse of the individuals with TBI from their controls. Individuals with TBI were significantly more dysfluent than their matched controls. Furthermore, their performance on the narrative task revealed a striking listener burden.