Expressive Language Performance in Adults With Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Abstract

Adults with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) are at risk for developing persistent cognitive, physical, and psychological symptoms. Adults with mTBI often report difficulties meeting the demands of everyday communication. Studies which characterize mTBI-related communication functions are needed in this growing area of rehabilitation and research. Speed of information processing is expected to affect communication because of the speeded nature of conversation. In this dissertation, we report data from three studies designed to characterize language performance after mTBI. For two studies, we tested a speed-based hypothesis based on the evidence that speed of information processing is an area of cognitive impairment for many people after mTBI. We compared performance to an OI group to discriminate the effects of brain versus general trauma in the subacute stage of recovery from mTBI. Results indicated that on experimental naming and comprehension tasks, individuals with mTBI performed in a comparable way to OI controls. The effect of a condition of speed was statistically significant for the group as a whole, but differences could not be attributed to mTBI specifically. In addition, accuracy and reaction time were correlated with injury and symptom variables such as sleep quality and fatigue. Our third study aimed to characterize communication in adults with mTBI by measuring self-perception of communication problems and comparing these responses to a group of adults with moderate to severe TBI and a community based comparison (CC) group. The mTBI group identified fewer areas of deficit in communication competence than any of the study groups and there were only significant differences between groups at the opposite ends of the injury spectrum. The study findings suggest that perhaps a combination of a demanding linguistic tasks combined with strict temporal response windows can be a potential method for further study. These studies provide evidence that although injuries of this nature are considered “mild,” the issues surrounding appropriate assessment, treatment, and recovery are complex and should be regarded in future research.