Developing a Social Communication Screener for TBI

Purpose:While speech-language pathologists (SLPs) play a pivotal role in identifying and treating social communication impairment in traumatic brain injury (TBI), there has been limited adoption of standardized assessments. SLPs report a lack of time, as well as a lack of competence in the administration of social communication assessments as primary barriers. Developing a feasible and valid screening tool is a viable solution to these barriers. The present study investigates a transcription-less rating scale as a screening tool for social communication impairment in TBI. Method:In a single-blind study, N=38 graduate clinicians listened to, and rated, six-minute conversation samples from ten speakers (5 TBI and 5 control [neurotypical]). Graduate clinician ratings were analyzed to determine if there were between-group differences in TBI and control speakers’ conversations, and whether raters had high agreement regarding speaker impairment. In addition, social communication ratings from the screener were compared to a gold standard of social communication measurement derived from transcribed analysis of the conversation samples. Results:Graduate clinicians significantly differentiated TBI from control speakers using the transcription-less rating scale and the ratings corresponded to patterns identified in the transcribed analyses. Given an exploratory “cut-off” score, raters identified speakers with TBI with 80% accuracy. Conclusions:These preliminary findings indicate that a brief, transcription-less rating scale holds promise to screen for social communication impairment in TBI to determine whether further assessment is warranted.