Performance of normal speakers and speakers with aphasia on the Cantonese version of the Amsterdam-Nijmegen everyday language test (CANELT) : a functional approach

Abstract

There is an increasing recognition of assessing speakers with aphasia in terms of their functional communication. Compared to the English literature, relatively few functional communication assessment tools are available for the Cantonese-speaking population. Therefore, this study aimed to develop the Cantonese version of Amsterdam-Nijmegen Everyday Language Test (CANELT), to establish age-stratified normative data, and evaluate its potential in applying to measure verbal communicative abilities of speakers with aphasia. Eighty-nine neurologically healthy speakers and 26 speakers of aphasia were administered with the CANELT. Two functional quantitative measures, Opening and New Information scores, were developed to measure the verbal effectiveness of the elicited language samples. Results indicated significant effects of age on both quantitative measures. Compared to the normal speaker group, most speakers of aphasia produced significantly less informative content in Opening and New Information, with the exception of two speakers anomic aphasia. In addition, a strong correlation was found between aphasia severity and the two CANELT measures. High inter-rater and intra-rater reliabilities were also established, suggesting the proposed scoring system is reliable to be used in the clinical and research setting.