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Purpose: The absence of culture- and language-specific aphasia assessment in Bangla underscores a critical problem in communication sciences and disorders. Aphasia occurs in ~41% of Bangla-speaking stroke survivors. In the past 40 years, stroke incidence has doubled in low- and middle-income countries, such as Bangladesh and India, where there are ~250 million native Bangla speakers. This study aims to initiate the first step toward identifying an appropriate picture stimulus for the Bangla picture description task (PDT) intended for inclusion in a Bangla aphasia assessment. Researchers have reported the importance of cultural relevance and three visuographic variables of a picture (high-context, color, and photograph vs. black-and-white line drawing) for faster comprehension and comprehensive language production in people with aphasia and neurologically healthy adults. Method: Ninety-six neurologically healthy native Bangla speakers of three age groups (young 19–30, middle age 40–55, and older 65–89 years) were recruited to compare spontaneous language production for four selected culturally related and nonrelated picture stimuli with and without the three visuographic variables. Five linguistic variables were used to analyze the language samples. Results: The results demonstrated a significant (a) picture type effect for moving-average type–token ratio, words per minute (WPM), and mean length of utterance in morphemes (MLU) and (b) age group effect for WPM, MLU, and complexity index. Conclusions: This study suggests that a culturally related high-context color photograph is the optimal choice for the Bangla PDT. This study also indicates reduced fluency, grammatical complexity, and syntactic complexity in healthy Bangla-speaking adults aged 65 years and above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Efficacy studies have demonstrated the benefit of group conversation therapy for a person with aphasia (PWA). However, a PWA typically participates in individual therapy prior to group therapy. Stimulation therapy (ST) is the most common type of individual aphasia therapy. Ultimately, the outcome of therapy is to enable the PWA to communicate effectively with others, which suggests the need for conversation therapy (CT). Little efficacy data exist to demonstrate the benefit of CT between a PWA and a clinician, in part because no clear treatment outcome measures have been established. More information is needed to identify optimal ways to measure CT outcomes. Aim To identify ways to measure CT outcomes and to determine if there is a change in linguistic complexity and total talk time during conversation, samples were taken during CT and ST in two PWAs. Methods & Procedures Seventeen 6-min conversational samples per PWA were analyzed from a prior single-subject AB1AB2A alternating treatment study with randomized ordering of interventions across participants. Data were analyzed for seven measures of linguistic complexity using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcripts (SALT). Efficiency was measured using correct information units (CIUs) per minute and total talk time. Outcomes & Results Per cent of complex utterances and propositional density were higher following CT. Four out of seven linguistic measures increased following ST. Total talk time was significantly greater for one PWA during CT compared with ST. No differences were found in CIUs/min across treatment types. Conclusion & Implications Linguistic complexity and efficiency appear to be conversational treatment outcome measures that are sensitive to change, which researchers might consider using. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]