Comparison of language impairment, functional communication, and discoursemeasures in African-American aphasic and normal adults

We compared performance on language impairment, functional communication, a nd discourse measures between 33 African-American aphasic patients and 30 A frican-American normal subjects. The aphasic group performed significantly lower than the normal group on the Western Aphasia Battery Aphasia and Cort ical Quotients, Token Test, and ASHA Functional Assessment of Communication Skills for Adults. Moreover, the aphasic group performed significantly low er than the normal group in their quality of language on a discourse task t hat required telling a frightening experience. Significant relationships be tween performance on the measures were confined to those that index languag e impairment. Use of a normal ethnic cohort for comparison with African-Ame rican aphasic performance may control for potential ethnic bias in the meas ures. In addition, use of a discourse task permits observation of grammatic al and stylistic features in African-American English that may not be captu red or are ignored by traditional language impairment and functional commun ication measures.