ASSESSMENT OF SYNTAX AFTER ADOLESCENT BRAIN INJURY - EFFECTS OF MEMORY ON TEST-PERFORMANCE

In this study, we investigated the influence of working memory load on performance of a task designed to measure receptive syntax ability Su bjects were 6 brain-injured adolescents and 6 hospitalized control sub jects matched for age, sex, and general ability Each subject was admin istered the Listening/Grammar subtest of the Test of Adolescent Langua ge (TOAL-3) and a modified version of this subtest with identical synt ax and fewer response choices [i.e., a reduced working memory processi ng and storage load). The syntactic structures tested on these tasks a lso were measured in spontaneous narratives. The brain-injured subject s' performance was significantly worse than that of controls on both v ersions of the syntax comprehension subtest. There was a significant g roup-by-task interaction, as brain-injured subjects' performance was s ignificantly worse on the Listening/Grammar subtest than the modified subtest, whereas Control subjects' performance did not differ across t he two tasks. In their spontaneous narratives, subjects in both groups produced the syntactic structures tested on the receptive syntax task s, with no between-groups difference in syntax production. The results are discussed in terms of test validity and the impact of measurement methods on test performance in disordered groups.