Dysarthric talk in everyday social conversation:
the nature and repair of simple and complex
trouble sources.
Steven Bloch & Ray Wilkinson
Dept of Human Communication Science
University College London
Acquired progressive dysarthria in
conversation
• How is talk in conversation managed when one person
has reduced speech intelligibility?
• Interest in the everyday social consequences of dysarthria
- how it is ‘played out’ (accomplished) by people at home?
• How are problems with intelligibility, when they occur,
identified and repaired by participants during
conversation?
Methodology : Conversation Analysis
• Three couples with MND/ALS - all experiencing
mild/moderate dysarthria at recruitment stage
• Videos of naturally occurring interaction
• Data collected at three monthly intervals over a maximum
18-month period
• Data transcribed, repeatedly viewed and analysed for
different patterns of interaction through talk
Repair in conversation (Schegloff, Jefferson
and Sacks 1977)
• Self or other initiation of repair - someone displays a
problem or trouble within current turn or in a following turn
• An identified trouble source - the problem itself
• Self or other completion of the repair - an attempt to
resolve the trouble
• Other-initiated self-repair identified as a common pattern
within the data for this study
Simple (single) trouble source - Rose and
Tom
R: no down near Pahrnam
T: near where?
R: near Pahrnam
T: oh so it’s not so far then
R: no
Simple (single) trouble source - Mary and
Stan
M: a big (.) help.
(2.0)
S: mm?
M: a big (0.5) help
S: you get oh it’s a big help
yeah it is
Complex (single) trouble source - Mary and
Stan
M: spine
(2.0)
S: mind the what?
M: spine
(1.0)
S: spine?
Complexity with reference to turn action and not just intelligibility
Multiple trouble source - Rose and Tom
•More than one trouble source
•Multiple attempts to resolve
the trouble
• Resolved through serial
repair of separate elements
within the turn
Multiple trouble source - Mary and Stan
M: there was a another one
last week but she couldn’t
settle
S: she did what last week?
M: (repair via speech and AAC)
S: this is this woman Gladys?
Repair in dysarthria
•
•
•
•
The real social consequence of unintelligibility
Simple and multiple trouble sources
Beyond (un)intelligibility - understandability
Natural speech and AAC are NOT mutually
exclusive resources
• Collaborative action between participants
Implications
• Understanding dysarthria beyond intelligibility
measures - seeing how people ‘do dysarthria’
• Possible ideas for assessment/outcomes participants own strategies and resources
• Possible ideas for intervention - what works for
each dyad? What causes problems?
• Clinician doesn’t assume expertise in dyads own
resources
• Single and multiple NOT simple and complex!
For further information please feel free to contact:
s.bloch@ucl.ac.uk