Functional Determination of Written Communication in Patients with Broca’s Aphasia

Abstract

The research is devoted to the study of the specificity of disorders of written speech in efferent motor agraphia, depending on the functional orientation of writing. The theoretical prerequisite for the work was the functionalist approach developed in the direction of cultural-historical psychology. The goal of the study: to reveal the variability of writing disorders in efferent motor agraphia in the conditions of different types of written speech performance in terms of functional orientation. The study used ecological tasks, which were developed in the culture of everyday writing activities, and traditional diagnostic tasks aimed at assessing separate writing operations. The study involved 22 patients with post-stroke efferent motor agraphia, 13 of them were men, the average age was 55,0±8,0 years. Nineteen patients had higher education, 3 — secondary education. The results of statistical calculations did not reveal significant differences in any of the types of errors at the level of individual words. The analyzed types of written errors were revised in favor of syntactic ones. Intraindividual analysis using nonparametric criteria revealed differences in 5 types of syntax errors. The obtained differences are explained by the choice of certain writing strategies that meet the written task assigned to the patient. The analysis shows the need to take into account not only the various instrumental components of speech and structural units of the language, in particular, syntax, but also functional changes manifested at the level of pragmatics.