Discourse analysis of individuals with fluent aphasia and slight oral comprehension difficulty

ABSTRACT: Purpose: to analyze the narrative, descriptive, conversational and procedural discourse of fluent aphasics and to compare their performance with healthy individuals. Methods: the authors selected by a systematic sample 22 fluent aphasic individuals complaining of discursive difficulty and that presented language disorders post stroke. The individuals are or were in treatment in the institution of origin. The aphasic individuals were matched in age and education. Both groups were subjected to a protocol of oral discursive tasks to the evaluation of narrative, descriptive, conversational and procedural discourse. Results: in most of the investigated variables, there were statistically significant differences in all types of discourse in the quantitative and qualitative analysis. Conclusion: aphasic individuals presented better performance in narrative discourse and greater difficulty in the other discourse tasks, although when comparing their discourse with the healthy individuals' discourse they presented greater difficulty in all the oral discursive genres.