Communicative efficiency in severe aphasia

The communicative efficiency of three severely aphasic clients was assessed with a 10-item message exchange task. The three clients demonstrated distinctively different communication profiles. Client M.D. communicated verbally; B.D. relied on drawing and writing; J.S. employed elaborate gestures. Three groups of eight raters assessed the communicative efficiency (CE) and degree of communicative burden (CB) assumed by the partner for each message exchange using a visual analogue scale. One group was aware of the content of the message exchanges (Full Content); a second received partial information about message contents in the form of a cue (Partial Content); a third received no information (No Content). Mean ratings of CE and CB differed significantly for the three clients. Many of these differences can be explained in relation to the client's severity of aphasia and abilities to effectively employ output modalities available to them to convey messages. CE ratings were higher and CB ratings were lower in the No Content viewing condition than the Partial and Full Content conditions. Several possible explanations are offered for this surprising result.