Applying main concept analysis (MCA) to analyze storytelling and procedural description by Cantonese-speaking people with aphasia and controls from Cantonese AphasiaBank

Abstract

 Main Concept Analysis (MCA) is a content-based analysis emphasizes the presence, accuracy and completeness of essential information in oral discourse by people with aphasia (PWAs). The present study examined the discourse performance of 150 unimpaired speakers and 105 PWAs from the Cantonese AphasiaBank. Based on the unimpaired speakers’ performance, three new sets of main concept list for the tasks of storytelling and procedural description were established. Age, gender and education level stratified normative data on the MCA measures were provided. The results indicated significant effects of task type, age and education level on discourse performance, measured by the overall effectiveness measure Main Concept score and the efficiency measure Number of AC/minute. Comparing the types of aphasia, fluent PWAs performed significantly better than the non-fluent PWAs on all the tasks, in both effectiveness and efficiency measures. The MC lists and normative data established in the present study made MCA, which is a clinically friendly transcription-less discourse analysis, applicable to PWAs. The readers can make use of the MC lists and the norms to analyze a PWA’s discourse performance, for the purposes of assessment, treatment and/or progress documentation.