Comprehension of proverbs in persons with TBI: case reports

Abstract

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) leaves numerous consequences on cognitive, language, and com- munication abilities. TBI often leads to disturbances in comprehending figurative language, which can disrupt the communication process. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the ability of persons who have suffered TBI to understand proverbs in order to draw attention to figurative language/conversation abilities, which is a topic that is rarely investigated. Method: The sample consisted of 4 subjects with TBI aged 22 to 29 years, who had complet- ed 12 to 16 years of education. Subjects were tested between 4 and 9 months after the injury. Using magnetic resonance imaging, it was determined that two subjects had a diffuse brain injury, while the other two had a contusion brain injury. The control group consisted of four subjects who equally-matched to subjects with TBI in terms of gender, age, and level of edu- cation. The study focused on 10 proverbs that are used often in everyday communication. The assessment of the understanding of proverbs was carried out by two clinicians in the Serbian language. After the subject heard the proverb, he/she was asked to interpret the meaning, while two clinicians recorded the success of the understanding and categorised the subject’s answers based on the following: understands the concrete meaning, partially understands the metaphor, and fully understands the metaphor. Descriptive statistical measures were used in this study. The results show that subjects with diffuse lesions had pronounced diffi- culties in understanding proverbs, while subjects with brain contusions interpreted the prov- erbs well, but with a delayed latency. Conclusion: Our data shows that proverb comprehension disorders are more pronounced in people with a diffuse injury than those with a contusion brain injury. Due to the small num- ber of respondents, in this study, we compared only the type of brain injury, not the location. In addition, these results are limited by the size of the sample and cannot be generalised.