Spoken Discourse Impairments in the Neurogenic Populations

This comprehensive volume provides balanced and easily readable chapters on contemporary topics around discourse production in patients with neurogenic disorders. Discourse broadly refers to a unit of language longer than a single sentence, typically used in a spoken or written format to express ideas, feelings, and opinions or to interact with others. As the field of research in speech-language pathology, aphasia and related neurogenic disorders, and clinical decision-making to manage neurogenic impairments is rapidly expanding, there has been an increased focus on discourse analysis and therapy to enable patients to speak well again. Various user groups and people with lived experience (e.g., aphasia, dementia, traumatic brain injury, right hemisphere damage, etc.) are also increasingly focused on the impact of neurogenic impairments on domains of conversation and changes in language skills beyond the smaller linguistic components of single words and sentences that are traditionally supported by speech-language therapy.

The first part of this book details and discusses the basic principles, historical perspectives (history and developmental milestones), neural basis, and recent evolutions and advancement of discourse analysis in speakers with acquired communication disorders. The second part of the book outlines and illustrates current methods for discourse elicitation and analysis across different clinical populations. Recent leaps forward in technology that can assist in the recording, processing, and analysis of discourse will be highlighted. The final part of book reviews and summarizes key developments of various evidenced-based training strategies, interventions, and treatment programs, as well as utilization of innovative technology to clinically improve neurogenic disordered discourse.​

This is an ideal guide for researchers, clinicians, and students in the field of communication sciences and disorders, speech and language therapy, gerontology, (neuro-)linguistics, psychology, and related fields in clinical medicine.

Anthony Pak-Hin Kong holds a Ph.D. in Speech and Hearing Sciences and is a professor and research scientist specialized in aphasiology at The University of Hong Kong. He is a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) and Academy of Aphasia. In 2013, he received the ASHA Recognition for Outstanding Contribution in International Achievement. Dr. Kong currently serves as the Head of Academic Unit of Human Communication, Learning, and Development (HCLD) and Director of Aphasia Research and Therapy (ART) Laboratory at The University of Hong Kong.Trained as a speech-language pathologist, Dr. Kong’s research interests include stroke-.-induced aphasia, discourse analyses, neurogenic communication disorders in multilingual speakers, gesture production and multi-modal communication in aphasia, acoustic analysis and automatic speech assessment for disordered speech, neuromodulation and technology-based training foracquired communication disorders, and community support to people with aphasia and their caregivers. His research has received continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Hong Kong Government, The Government of the People's Republic of China, and multiple national and international universities and private foundations.

Over the years, Dr. Kong has developed several important language and cognitive tools/batteries for clinical evaluation of Chinese speakers, such as The Main Concept Analysis (MCA) for oral discourse production, The Hong Kong version of the Oxford Cognitive Screen, and The Cantonese version of Birmingham Cognitive Screen. He is also the organizer of the Cantonese AphasiaBank (https://speech.edu.hku.hk/caphbank/search/), the first data-sharing corpus of multi-modal discourse production by Chinese-speaking people with aphasia and healthy individuals. His most recent authored book is Analysis of neurogenic disordered discourse production: Theories, assessment and treatment (2nd edition) (Routledge).

Dr. Kong is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Cogent Gerontology (Taylor & Francis) and was elected as Vice Chairperson of the Hong Kong Association of Speech Therapists (2004-07). As a world-renowned scholar in communication sciences and disorders, Dr. Kong serves and served as Consultant/Advisor to provide research, clinical, and/or professional consultations to many national and international agencies, such as Aphasia United, Voices of Hope for Aphasia, Project BRIDGE (Building Research Initiatives by Developing Group Effort, USA), The Self-help Group for the Brain Damaged, National Clinical Research Center for Aging and Medicine at Fudan University (China), Hong Kong Hospital Authority, and Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation.