title: Casual conversations between individuals with traumatic brain injury and their friends.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate casual conversations with friends following severe traumatic brain injury (TBI).
  
  
  METHODS
  Nine participants with severe TBI were matched by age, gender and education to nine control participants. Each participant also invited a friend to partake in the study. Participants were recorded engaging in a brief casual conversation with a friend. The resulting discourse was analysed using Exchange Structure Analysis (ESA). Rates of information giving, information requesting and communication repair and negotiation were collated. Non-parametric statistical analyses were performed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Participants with and without TBI obtained similar rates of information giving and information requesting. The friends of the participants with TBI produced significantly lower rates of information giving measures when compared to the controls, but achieved comparable rates of information requesting and communication repair and negotiation measures. Participants with TBI were observed to produce tangential language and to have difficulties identifying communication breakdown, asking questions and engaging in conversational joking.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  People with TBI are able to engage in casual conversations with friends in a similar way to matched controls. Friends of people with TBI are often restricted in contributing information in conversations. Further research is needed to specify the facilitative and restrictive communication behaviours so that they may be translated to clinical practise.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences, Discipline of Speech Pathology, The University of Sydney, NSW, Australia. elise.bogart@sydney.edu.au
authors.forename: Elise
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bogart
authors.forename: Leanne
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Togher
authors.forename: Emma
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Power
authors.forename: Kimberley
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Docking
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001930:Brain Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D033062:Friends; D006801:Humans; D057226:Information Seeking Behavior; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017008:Negotiating; D012917:Social Adjustment; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D055815:Young Adult