title: Severe traumatic brain injury, frontal lesions, and social aspects of language use: a study of French-speaking adults.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to gain insight into the social (pragmatic) aspects of language use by French-speaking individuals with frontal lesions following a severe traumatic brain injury. Eleven participants with traumatic brain injury performed tasks in three areas of communication: production (interview situation), comprehension (direct requests, conventional indirect requests, and hints), and metapragmatic knowledge. The results of the patients pointed out some strengths (turn-taking in production, and request comprehension, including hints and the speaker's intention) and some weaknesses (topic maintenance in production and metapragmatic knowledge). The patients' good comprehension of requests and their difficulty expressing metapragmatic knowledge suggest that they differ from controls in how they "explain the world": their knowledge of the event sequence was not based on verbally expressible knowledge about the relationship between the structural characteristics of a request utterance and those of its social production context. The pragmatic skills of persons with traumatic brain injury seem to vary across tasks: these individuals have specific strengths and weaknesses in different domains. In addition, marked interindividual differences were noted among the patients: three of them had only one weak point, topic maintenance. These interindividual differences were not systematically linked to performance on executive function tests, but lesion unilaterality (right or left) seems to help preserve patients' pragmatic and metapragmatic skills. The discussion stresses the need to take each patient's strengths and weaknesses into account in designing remediation programs.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  As a result of this activity, the reader will be able to explain the social/pragmatic aspects of language in typical and atypical participants with TBI. As a result of this activity, the reader will be able to identify social/pragmatic weaknesses and strengths.
authors: Université Européenne de Bretagne-Rennes 2, Centre de Recherches en Psychologie, Cognition et Communication (EA 1285), Place du Recteur H. Le Moal, 35043 Rennes Cedex, France.
authors: Virginie
authors: V
authors: Dardier
authors: Josie
authors: J
authors: Bernicot
authors: Anaïg
authors: A
authors: Delanoë
authors: Mélanie
authors: M
authors: Vanberten
authors: Catherine
authors: C
authors: Fayada
authors: Mathilde
authors: M
authors: Chevignard
authors: Corinne
authors: C
authors: Delaye
authors: Anne
authors: A
authors: Laurent-Vannier
authors: Bruno
authors: B
authors: Dubois
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D020208:Brain Injury, Chronic / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D032882:Comprehension; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000293:injuries*; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D033182:Intention; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007806:Language Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D012660:Semantics; D012919:Social Behavior; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D055815:Young Adult