ACQ Vol 13 No1 2011

task more familiar topics may improve communicative success while less familiar topics may be introduced to increase the difficulty of the discourse task. Conclusions Collectively, the results indicate slower, less efficient discourse with more errors was produced in response to procedures on unfamiliar topics. The differences in the participant’s output when comparing the response to the familiar and unfamiliar topics supports the hypothesis of a greater level of communicative success when discussing procedures that are performed regularly. This result may be due to the interaction between linguistic and cognitive processes during discourse production and the impact of the greater cognitive load created with the unfamiliar topics. References Armstrong, E. (2000). Aphasic discourse analysis: The story so far. Aphasiology , 14 (9), 875–892. Beeke, S., Maxim, J., & Wilkinson, R. (2007). Using conversation analysis to assess and treat people with aphasia. Seminars in Speech & Language , 28 (2), 136–147. Ciccone, N. (2003). The measurement of stability in aphasia recovery: Implications for language modelling (Unpublished doctoral thesis). Curtin University of Technology, Perth, WA. Doyle, P., McNeil, M., Park, G., Goda, A., Rubenstein, E., Spencer, K., et al. (2000). Linguistic validation of four parallel forms of a story retelling procedure. Aphasiology , 14 (5/6), 537–549. Doyle, P., McNeil, M., Spencer, K., Goda, A., Cottrell, K., & Lustig, A. (1998). The effects of concurrent picture presentations on reteling of orally presented stories by adults with aphasia. Aphasiology , 12 (7/8), 561–574. Ellis C., Rosenbek J. C., Rittman, M. R., & Boylstein, C. A. (2005). Recovery of cohesion in narrative discourse after left- hemisphere stroke. Journal of Rehabilitation Research and Development , 42 (6), 737–46. Goodglass, H., & Kaplan, E. (1983). The assessment of aphasia and related disorders (2nd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lea & Febiger. Li, E., Williams, S., & Della Volpe, A. (1995). The effects of topic and listener familiarity on discourse variables in procedural and narrative discourse tasks. Journal of Communication Disorders , 28 , 39 - 55. McNeil, M., Doyle, P., Fosset, T., Park, G., & Goda, A. (2001). Reliability and concurrent validity of the information unit scoring metric for the story retelling procedure. Aphasiology , 15 (10/11), 991–1006.

Adrienne Miles is currently working as a speech pathologist in the area of adult rehabilitation at Royal Perth Hospital. Dr Natalie Ciccone is a lecturer in the Speech Pathology program at Edith Cowan University. Dr Erin Godecke is a speech pathology postdoctoral research fellow with Edith Cowan University and the Clinical Centre of Research Excellence: Aphasia Rehabilitation. Correspondence to: Natalie Ciccone, PhD Speech Pathology, School of Psychology and Social Science Edith Cowan University, 270 Joondalup Drive, Joondalup, WA 6027 email: n.ciccone@ecu.edu.au Williams, S., Li, E., Della Volpe, A., & Ritterman, S. (1994). The influence of topic and listener familiarity on aphasic discourse. Journal of Communication Disorders , 27 , 207–222. Wilson, M. D. (1998). The MRC psycholinguistic database: Machine readable dictionary (Version 2). Retrieved from http://www.psych.rl.ac.uk/ McNeil, M., Odell, K., & Tseng, C. (1991). Toward the integration of resource allocation into a general theory of aphasia. Clinical Aphasiology , 20 , 21–39. Merlo, S., & Mansur, L. (2004). Descriptive discourse: Topic familiarity and disfluencies. Journal of Communication Disorders , 37 , 489–503. Miller, J., & Chapman, R. (2002). SALT for Windows (Version 8.0). Madison, WI: Language Analysis Laboratory Waisman Research Center. Murray, L., Holland, A., & Beeson, P. (1998). Spoken language of individuals with mild fluent aphasia under focused and divided attention conditions. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research , 41 (1), 213–227. Nicholas, L., & Brookshire, R. (1993). A system for quantifying the informativeness and efficiency of the connected speech of adults with aphasia. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research , 36 , 338–350. Sherratt, S. (2007). Multi-level discourse analysis: A feasible approach. Aphasiology , 21 (3/4), 375–393. Ulatowska, H. K., Allard, L., & Bond Chapman, S. (1990). Narrative and procedural discourse in aphasia. In Y. Joanette & H. H. Brownell (Eds.), Discourse ability and brain damage: Theoretical and empirical perspectives (pp. 180–198). New York: Springer-Verlag. Ulatowska, H. K., & Bond, S. (1983). Aphasia: Discourse considerations. Topics in Language Disorders, September , 21–34. Ulatowska, H. K., Freedman-Stern, R., Doyel, A. W., Macaluso-Haynes, S., & North, A. J. (1983). Production of narrative discourse in aphasia. Brain and Language , 19 , 317–334.

Would you like to contact more than 4,500 speech pathologists? Advertising in ACQ and Speak Out is a great way to spread your message to speech pathologists in Australia and overseas. We have different size advertising space available. If you book in every issue for the whole year you’ll receive a discount. See www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au for further information about advertising

11

ACQ Volume 13, Number 1 2011

www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au