Influence of Age and Executive Functions on Story Grammar.pptVIP

Influence of Age and Executive Functions on Story Grammar Performance in Adults Michael S. Cannizzaro Carl A. Coelho University of Connecticut, Storrs * Poster presented at the 33rd annual Clinical Aphasiology Conference, May 2003. E-mail michael.cannizzaro@uconn.edu INTRODUCTION Previous investigations of age-related cognitive-linguistic decline have demonstrated the value of studying discourse ability Chapman, Zientz, Weiner, Rosenberg, Frawley, Burns, 2002; Glosser Desser, 1992; Makenzie, 2000; Snow Douglas, 2000; Ulatowska, Freedman-Stern, Doyel, Macaluso-Haynes, North, 1983 . Discourse can be conceptualized as the related, extended, and meaningful representation of communication across multiple language units van Dijk Kintsch, 1983 . Accurate production and comprehension of narrative discourse requires a complex interaction of linguistic, cognitive, and social abilities Coelho, 1995; Ylvisaker, Szekeres, Feeney, 2001 . The story narrative genre has frequently been studied because it is considered a stereotypical type of discourse due to its formal and predictable framework Faylor Lemaire, 1993 . Such narratives follow a cognitively based, measurable, structured set of rules called story grammar, which are not dictated by the specific content of the message conveyed Coelho, 1998; Liles, Duffy, Merritt, Purcell, 1995; Mandler Johnson, 1977; Stein Glenn, 1979 . Liles 1985 describes this underlying rule structure in narratives as a “cognitive skeleton” that creates character identities as well as the relational and causal elements that are fundamental to a well-formed story narrative. The production of discourse combines the use of language and cognitive organizational principles permitting investigation of the interaction of these abilities. Thus, discourse analyses are concerned with the entire discourse text and the relationship between its structure and function i.e., the language itself and organization of the text McDonald, 1998