TY - JOUR
T1 - Discourse Macrolevel Processing after Severe Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury
AU - Chapman, Sandra Bond
AU - Sparks, Garen
AU - Levin, Harvey S.
AU - Dennis, Maureen
AU - Roncadin, Caroline
AU - Zhang, Lifang
AU - Song, James
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (Grant 2RO1 NS 21889–16).
PY - 2004
Y1 - 2004
N2 - The purpose of this study was to determine if discourse macrolevel processing abilities differed between children with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) at least 2 years postinjury and typically developing children. Twenty-three children had sustained a severe TBI either before the age of 8 (n = 10) or after the age of 8 (n = 13). The remaining 32 children composed a control group of typically developing peers. The groups' summaries and interpretive lesson statements were analyzed according to reduction and transformation of narrative text information. Compared to the control group, the TBI group condensed the original text information to a similar extent. However, the TBI group produced significantly less transformed information during their summaries, especially those children who sustained early injuries. The TBI and control groups did not significantly differ in their production of interpretive lesson statements. In terms of related skills, discourse macrolevel summarization ability was significantly related to problem solving but not to lexical or sentence level language skills or memory. Children who sustain a severe TBI early in childhood are at an increased risk for persisting deficits in higher level discourse abilities, results that have implications for academic success and therapeutic practices.
AB - The purpose of this study was to determine if discourse macrolevel processing abilities differed between children with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) at least 2 years postinjury and typically developing children. Twenty-three children had sustained a severe TBI either before the age of 8 (n = 10) or after the age of 8 (n = 13). The remaining 32 children composed a control group of typically developing peers. The groups' summaries and interpretive lesson statements were analyzed according to reduction and transformation of narrative text information. Compared to the control group, the TBI group condensed the original text information to a similar extent. However, the TBI group produced significantly less transformed information during their summaries, especially those children who sustained early injuries. The TBI and control groups did not significantly differ in their production of interpretive lesson statements. In terms of related skills, discourse macrolevel summarization ability was significantly related to problem solving but not to lexical or sentence level language skills or memory. Children who sustain a severe TBI early in childhood are at an increased risk for persisting deficits in higher level discourse abilities, results that have implications for academic success and therapeutic practices.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=1542291106&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=1542291106&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1207/s15326942dn2501&2_4
DO - 10.1207/s15326942dn2501&2_4
M3 - Article
C2 - 14984328
AN - SCOPUS:1542291106
SN - 8756-5641
VL - 25
SP - 37
EP - 60
JO - Developmental Neuropsychology
JF - Developmental Neuropsychology
IS - 1-2
ER -