ADOLESCENTS WITH TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY - ASSESSING PRAGMATIC LANGUAGE FUNCTION

This paper reviews aspects of assessment of pragmatic language functio n in adolescents who suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI). First, the nature of the injuries and the communication disturbances seen with T BI are described. It is argued that such communication disturbances ar e a result of the impact of impaired cognitive processes upon basic la nguage abilities, especially those cognitive processes to do with fron tal lobe function and executive control. Secondly, a number of theoret ical approaches to the assessment of pragmatic language are reviewed a s they have been applied to adult traumatically brain-injured subjects . One approach has been discourse analyses focusing on local and globa l coherence of monologues produced under standard conditions. A second has been the use of a speech act framework to analyse the production and comprehension of social inference to meet specific social contextu al requirements. A battery designed to assess pragmatic language funct ion incorporating these approaches is described, and the preliminary r esults of its application to traumatically brain-injured adolescents a re discussed.