Conversational repair in individuals with Alzheimer disease

Abstract

Purpose: many of the difficulties that usually arise in colloquial conversation may be repaired as the interaction develops. Conversational repair is a linguistic strategy that indicates evidence of the partners‘ abilities to promote necessary mutual understanding for effective communication. This study aims to analyze the oral text repairs of 10 older adults with Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) and 10 older adults without dementia, as well as to verify whether they are a useful element for language disorders identification in AD. Methods: autobiographical interview and application of items of the MetAphAs protocol were proposed. Data were analyzed based on the methodology of conversational analysis. Results: the results indicated that self-initiated repairs are frequent in both groups, although subjects with AD made more use of inadequate repairs, which did not favor mutual understanding. Hetero-repairs occurred most frequently in conversations with individuals with AD, suggesting the need for interlocutor’s intervention to adjust a specific utterance. Conclusion: this research has shown that using repair strategies is sensitive to individuals with AD cognitive performance.