The effects of right cerebral hemisphere damage on communication effectiveness and speech and language performance

Hill, Carol and Marquardt, Thomas (2005) The effects of right cerebral hemisphere damage on communication effectiveness and speech and language performance. [Clinical Aphasiology Paper]

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Abstract

Five expressive language tasks designed to assess communication effectiveness were administered to five males with right cerebral hemisphere damage (RHD) and five matched normal participants. Referential communication and sequencing tasks were most effective in determining communication differences between the two groups. Analysis of communication effectiveness revealed that the RHD participants had a reduced ability to understand informational task requirements and demonstrated difficulty in establishing a communicative partnership. Analysis of speech and language characteristics found increased frequency of referential unclarity, listener insensitivity, empty turns, lexical access difficulties and verbal feedback errors for the RHD participants. Results of the study suggest that RHD results in a loss of pragmatic, lexically interactive language, and an egocentric perspective on communication.

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