Conversational pauses between persons with aphasia and their spouses

People with aphasia often exhibit greater than usual frequency and duration of pauses. The manner the spouse reacts to these pauses can have an impact on the following conversation. In order to study pauses, two couples with one member with aphasia were studied in natural conversations which were qualitatively analyzed. Results show that for one couple the husband with aphasia as well as his wife introduced frequent changes of topic following a pause, while for the other couple, the wife appeared to be more tolerant of pauses which permitted to maintain the conversational topic

Effects of Age, Gender and Education on Semantic Fluency for Living and Artifact Categories

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of age, gender and education on semantic fluency for four living and four artifact categories. Thirty males and thirty females in two age groups matched for education level were included. Results revealed females named significantly more fruit and furniture items while males named more tools. Participants with a college degree had a significant advantage for clothing. Older males and younger females named more four-footed animals than did their gender-matched peers. There was no significant difference between living versus artifact categories overall. Implications will be discussed