Picture Description Discourse of the Western Aphasia Battery: Preliminary Reference Data From Mandarin Speakers and Comparison With Anomic Aphasia

What is already known on the subject Discourse analysis is becoming an area of growing interest. Microstructural measures reveal discourse deficits in aphasia that standardised tests may fail to detect. However, the absence of reference data in Mandarin for healthy adults presents a notable constraint that prevents the in-depth assessment of discourse in clinical settings. What this paper adds to the existing knowledge This study established preliminary reference data for the Mandarin-speaking population using the WAB picnic scene description task while examining the influence of demographic factors (age, education, gender) on discourse performance. The study compared discourse measures between healthy controls and persons with anomic aphasia. Findings demonstrated that age and education significantly influenced discourse performance in healthy participants. Significant differences were observed in most discourse measures between the control and anomic aphasia groups. What are the potential or actual clinical implications for this work? The reference data from this study enables clinicians to better understand and interpret the discourse abilities of persons with aphasia by identifying both specific measures and the extent to which these individuals exhibit discourse impairments compared to healthy controls. Microstructural discourse measures can be employed to compare the discourse abilities of healthy controls and individuals with aphasia.