Putting communication disorders in context after traumatic brain injury

In this editorial, the importance of context in communication after traumat ic brain injury (TBI) is discussed. Context is defined in a number of ways including the socio-cultural background of the individual, the specific soc ial context of any given communicative setting and the cognitive context of the individual including their prior knowledge and coexisting cognitive de ficits. Each of these is covered elsewhere in this special issue of Aphasio logy and mentioned perfunctorily here. In addition, however, it is argued t hat social perception, the ability to read social contextual cues, while cr itical to language competence is an area that has received relatively littl e attention in the research literature. However there is evidence that TBI individuals have problems understanding paralinguistic information (e.g. to ne of voice), non-verbal cues (e.g. facial expression) and contextual infor mation (e.g. relationship between speakers). The potential role of cognitiv e disturbances in producing such deficits is briefly considered.