ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY IN ASSESSMENT OF DISCOURSE IN TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY - RATINGS BY CLINICIAN AND NON-CLINICIAN

Researcher; studying discourse after traumatic brain injury (TBI) incr easingly recognize the need to take account of variation within the no n-brain-damaged (NBD) population in order to validate their findings. This study investigated the use of ratings by professional clinicians trained in speech pathology (P raters) and by peers of TBI individuals (NP raters) as a method of placing TBI individuals' communication in context. Twenty TBI adults and 20 NBD controls matched for age, sex, e ducation and social background retold a 1400 word story presented on a udiotape, following which the narratives were transcribed and segmente d. Raters used two ii-point scales, representing independent parameter s of Content and Clarity, to rate the transcripts. Statistical analysi s demonstrated that P raters tended to give higher ratings across the board than NP rates but that P and NP ratings were also highly correla ted. In general, the ratings assigned to the two subject groups overla pped and exhibited an even spread across the range of mean ratings. On the evidence of this study clinicians appear to share perceptions reg arding discourse performance with peers of the TBI subjects. In additi on, many TBI subjects perform as well or better than NBD controls on h igh-level tasks.