Macrostructural Aspects of Narrative Discourse in Left- and Right-Hemisphere Stroke in Brazilian Portuguese Speakers with Low Education

EasyChair Preprint 6405

Abstract

Objective: Individuals with a stroke in either the left (LH) or right hemisphere (RH) often present macrostructural impairments in narrative abilities. Understanding the potential influence of low education and low socioeconomic status (SES) is critical for a more effective assessment of post-stroke language. The first aim of the present study is to investigate macrostructural processing in individuals with low education and SES who sustained a LH or RH stroke and without brain damage. The second aim is to assess associations between macrolinguistic discourse performance, neuropsychological and sociodemographic variables. 

Methods: Thirty-one adults with LH (n = 15) or RH (n = 16) chronic ischemic stroke and 16 matched (age, education, and SES) healthy controls produced three oral picture-sequence narratives. The macrostructural analyses included cohesion, coherence, narrativity, macropropositions and index of lexical informativeness. Correlations were also performed between sociodemographic, neuropsychological and macrostructural variables. 

Results: Both stroke groups presented impairments in the local macrostructural aspect (cohesion), while the RH stroke group also presented impairments in more global dimensions (global coherence and macropropositions). All five macrostructural variables correlated to each other, with higher correlations with narrativity. Naming scores correlated with all macrostructural variables.

Conclusion: These results underline the importance of conducting cognitive and language studies in LH and RH post-stroke patients to better specify the characteristics of connected speech. Furthermore, this research contributes to increase our knowledge of discourse production in lower SES populations which represent the majority in developing countries.

Keyphrases: Stroke, discourse, lower socioeconomic status, macrostructural analysis

@booklet{EasyChair:6405,
  author    = {Amélie Brisebois and Fernanda Schneider and Karine Marcotte and Lilian Christine Hübner},
  title     = {Macrostructural Aspects of Narrative Discourse in Left- and Right-Hemisphere Stroke in Brazilian Portuguese Speakers with Low Education},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 6405},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2021}}