A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COMMUNICATION IMPAIRMENT AND DISEMPOWERMENT FOLLOWING HEAD-INJURY IN INFORMATION EXCHANGES

Communication disorders following closed head injury (CHI) have been d escribed in terms of the impairments that affect the individual's abil ity to produce words, sentences and discourse. Rather than focusing on impairments, this paper examines the disability experienced by one CH I subject. Comparison is made between M. R., who has sustained a sever e CHI, and his brother, S. R. during four telephone calls to their mot her, a therapist, the police and the bus timetable information service , using exchange structure analysis. Results indicated that social dis tance between communication partners, and the nature of the interactio n, affected the language choices made by both subjects. The communicat ion partner was found to have a profound impact on the way each subjec t was able to negotiate each interaction. Results are discussed in ter ms of the ways in which therapists and society in general view disabil ity and how this shapes social encounters, which in turn affects the o utcomes which are made possible for people with CHI.