Purpose: Discourse analyses have demonstrated utility for delineating subtle communication deficits following closed head injuries (CHIs). The present investigation examined the discourse performance of a large group of individuals with penetrating head injury (PHI). Performance was also compared across 6 subgroups of PHI based on lesion locale. A…

Purpose: The purpose of this article was to evaluate a new measure of story narrative performance: story completeness. It was hypothesized that by combining organizational (story grammar) and completeness measures, story "goodness" could be quantified. Method: Discourse samples from 46 typically developing adults were compared with those from 24…

Purpose: This study examined the prediction of performance on measures of the Story Goodness Index (SGI; Le, Coelho, Mozeiko, & Grafman, 2011) from executive function (EF) and memory measures following traumatic brain injury (TBI). It was hypothesized that EF and memory measures would significantly predict SGI outcomes. Method: One hundred…

Used confirmatory factor analysis to study the nature of memory distinctions underlying the performance of two samples of Vietnam veterans. One sample (n=96) had received head injuries resulting in relatively small lesions; the other (n=85) had not. A four-component model with verbal-episodic, visual-episodic, semantic, and short-term memory…

This article introduces a framework for conceptualizing four forms of cognitive neuroplasticity. The concepts include: (1) homologous area adaptivity; (2) cross-modal reassignment; (3) map expansion; and (4) compensatory masquerade. The limitations of each form of plasticity are presented. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)