Background: Despite its importance, in-depth analysis of connected speech is often neglected in the diagnosis of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) -- especially for the logopenic variant (lvPPA) for which unreliable differential diagnosis has been documented. Only a few studies have been conducted on this topic in lvPPA. Aims: The aim of this…

Background and Objectives: Normative reference of the connected speech measures (both micro-structural and macro-structural) for descriptive discourse is fundamental to systematic discourse analysis because it provides an anchor for comparison. This study aims to establish a comprehensive normative reference for connected speech measures in…

Background: Knowledge of the discourse performance of non-brain-damaged individuals is critical not only for its differentiation from disordered expression but also for more accurate models of ageing and communication. The effect of ageing and cognitive skills on the cohesive adequacy of discourse has, until now, presented a confusing and…

Background: Cohesion refers to the linguistic elements of discourse that contribute to its continuity and is an important element to consider as part of written language intervention, especially in children with language learning disabilities (LLD). There is substantial evidence that children with LLD perform more poorly than typically developing…

Background: Aphasia is characterized by difficulties in connected speech/writing. Aims: To explore the differences between the oral and written description of a picture in individuals with chronic aphasia (IWA) and healthy controls. Descriptions were controlled for productivity, efficiency, grammatical organization, substitution behaviour and…

Background: Children with pragmatic language impairment (PLI) show impairments in the use of language in social contexts. Although the issue has been gaining attention in recent literature, not much is known about the developmental trajectories of children who experience pragmatic language problems. Since narrative competence is an important…

Background: Identifying risk and protective factors for language development informs interventions for children with developmental language disorder (DLD). Maternal responsive and intrusive communicative behaviours are associated with language development. Mother-child interaction quality may influence how children use these behaviours in language…

Background: Disorganized speech, manifested as derailment, tangentiality, incoherence and loss of goal, occurs commonly in schizophrenia. Studies of language processing have demonstrated that semantic activation in schizophrenia is often disordered and, moreover, the ability to use contextual cues is impaired. Aims: To reconstruct the origins and…