Relationships among language impairment, functional communication, and pragmatic performance in aphasia

Background: Severity of and change in aphasia may be indexed by a language impairment measure or a functional communication measure, including assessment of pragmatic performance. The relationship of severity of and change in aphasia between different measures has not been clearly established. Aims: Performance on measures of language impairment, Porch Index of Communicative Abilities (PICA); functional communication, Rating of Functional Performance (RFP); and pragmatic performance, Pragmatic Protocol (PP) was examined to determine whether there are significant relationships among severity of performance deficits and among change in performance on each measure. The research questions were: Are there significant relationships among aphasic patients' language impairment, functional communication, and pragmatic performance at 4, 15, 26, 37, and 48 weeks postonset? Are there significant relationships among change scores between 4–15, 15–26, 26–37, 37–48, and 4–48 weeks postonset? Methods & Procedures: A tota...