Examination of local and global coherence in the impaired discourse of patients diagnosed with mixed aphasia

The study aimed to investigate the hypothesis indicating that the type of discourse influences the macro- and microstructure of the language used by Polish speakers diagnosed with mixed aphasia, and to demonstrate the discourse-specific linguistic properties in two groups of patients with mixed aphasia with either motor or sensory components compared to the neurotypical control group. The study aimed to investigate the hypothesis indicating that the type of discourse influences the macro- and microstructure of the language used by Polish speakers diagnosed with mixed aphasia, and to demonstrate the discourse-specific linguistic properties in two groups of patients with mixed aphasia with either motor or sensory components compared to the neurotypical control group.Language samples were collected from people with mixed aphasia with motor component (10 subjects), sensory component (10 subjects) and the control group (10 subjects), matched in terms of age and education. Discursive tasks (a description of experiences related to the disease, a description of an important life event, sequential image description, single image description, fairy tale narrative, procedural discourse) were taken from the Aphasia Bank protocol for discourse tasks. The discourse samples were analyzed within the general terms of cohesion and coherence, the relations between them, and the influence of discourse genre on cohesion. Language samples were analyzed for consistency and coded. To obtain qualitative data SALT software was used. Then, a statistical analysis was performed.A greater number of utterances were recorded in mixed aphasia with sensory component, something which may occur due to difficulties in selecting the appropriate vocabulary and overproduction which does not affect the coherence of the elements, but results in grammatical and semantic breakdown. Research has shown that for those with mixed aphasia it is easier to achieve a higher degree of local coherence than global coherence. Analysis has shown that the statements of people with mixed aphasia are characterized by lower local and global coherence.There is a necessity to continue the research to demonstrate the differences within other types of aphasia in Polish. Additionally, it is necessary for therapeutic activities to be undertaken so that those with aphasia could improve their linguistic functioning on a daily basis, especially in discourse production.