Conversation And Brain Damage

How do people with brain damage communicate? This collection of articles examines the ways in which aphasia and other neurological deficits lead to language impairments that shape the production, reception and processing of language.

There are very few books available which are concerned with the unique communication problems that can come with traumatic brain injury (TBI). In recent years there has emerged a realisation that these difficulties in communication are closely tied to the cognitive, behavioural and social problems observed following traumatic brain injury. This is changing the way people with TBI are assessed and is generating new approaches to rehabilitation. This volume will be of interest to psychologists, speech pathologists and therapists and linguists. Clinicians and researchers working with people with traumatic brain injury, and their students, will find it a comprehensive source of contemporary approaches to characterising the communication problems of people with TBI and for planning rehabilitation.

Nonspecialists are often surprised by the issues studied and the perspectives assumed by basic scientific researchers. Nowhere has the surprise traditionally been greater than in the field of psychology. College students anticipate that their psychology courses will illuminate their personal problems and their friends' per sonalities; they are nonplussed to discover that the perception of geometric forms and the running ofT-mazes dominates the textbooks. The situation is comparable in the domain of linguistics. Nonprofessional observers assume that linguists study exotic languages, that when they choose to focus on their own language, they will examine the meanings of utterances and the uses to which language is put. Such onlookers are taken aback to learn that the learning of remote languages is a marginal activity for most linguists; they are equally amazed to discover that the lion's share of work in the discipline focuses on issues of syntax and phonol ogy, which are virtually invisible to the speaker of a language. Science moves in its own, often mysterious ways, and there are perfectly good reasons why experimental psychologists prefer to look at mazes rather than at madness, and why linguists study syntax rather than Sanskrit. Nonetheless, it is a happy event for all concerned when the interests of professionals and non specialists begin to move toward one another and a field of study comes to address the "big questions" as well as the experimentally most tractable ones. Discourse Ability and Brain Damage reflects this trend in scientific research.

Originally published by Viking Penguin, 2014.

By addressing these and other questions this volume proposes a critical guide to CA and its applications with an extraordinary interview with Emanuel A. Schegloff, and new contributions towards a debate on his work by six commentators - conversation analysts (John Heritage and Charles Goodwin), critics (Rick Iedema and Par Segerdahl) and appliers of CA in the study of human-computer interaction (Pirkko Raudaskoski) and language disorders (Ruth Lesser). Schegloff's Response and a closing discussion with the editors conclude the volume, which also features a comprehensive bibliography of his work edited by Susan Eerdmans.

"Getting a fix on important questions and how to think about them from an experimental point of view is what scientists talk about, sometimes endlessly. It is those conversations that thrill and motivate," observes Michael Gazzaniga. Yet all too often these exciting interactions are lost to students, researchers, and others who are "doing" science.

"Transformative...[Taylor's] experience...will shatter [your] own perception of the world."—ABC News The astonishing New York Times bestseller that chronicles how a brain scientist's own stroke led to enlightenment On December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a thirty-seven- year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. As she observed her mind deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life-all within four hours-Taylor alternated between the euphoria of the intuitive and kinesthetic right brain, in which she felt a sense of complete well-being and peace, and the logical, sequential left brain, which recognized she was having a stroke and enabled her to seek help before she was completely lost. It would take her eight years to fully recover. For Taylor, her stroke was a blessing and a revelation. It taught her that by "stepping to the right" of our left brains, we can uncover feelings of well-being that are often sidelined by "brain chatter." Reaching wide audiences through her talk at the Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) conference and her appearance on Oprah's online Soul Series, Taylor provides a valuable recovery guide for those touched by brain injury and an inspiring testimony that inner peace is accessible to anyone.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can seriously disrupt the social and communication skills that are basic requirements for everyday life. It is the loss of these interpersonal skills that can be the most devastating for people with TBI and their families. Although there are many books that focus upon TBI, none focus on communication and communication skills specifically. This book fills this important gap in the literature and provides information ranging from a broad overview of the nature of pathology following TBI and its effects on cognition and behaviour, through to the latest evidence about ways to assess and treat social and communication disorders. Much has changed in the field of communication disorders and TBI since the first edition of this book was published in 1999. There have been advances in neuroimaging, providing more accurate understanding of how the brain is damaged in TBI and also insights into its repair. There has been a burgeoning interest in social cognition, and advances in how communication is conceptualized, with a particular focus on the role of how context facilitates or impedes communicative ability. Most importantly, much has changed in the arena of rehabilitation. There is now a growing evidence base of treatments aimed at improving communication problems following TBI, new resources for accessing this information and renewed interest in different kinds of methods for demonstrating treatment effects. Bringing together a range of expert international researchers interested in understanding the nature and treatment of TBI this book covers topics from understanding how the brain damage occurs, how it affects social and communication skills and how these problems might be treated. As such it will be of great interest to clinicians, postgraduate and undergraduate students and researchers in neuropsychology, speech and language pathology.