Post-Traumatic Amnesia Duration after Traumatic Brain Injury: Relationship to Outcome of Pragmatic Skills during Chronic Phases of Recovery

Background: Post-traumatic amnesia (PTA) is considered one of the best measures for predicting cognitive outcome following traumatic brain injury (TBI). PTA disrupts attention, perception, memory, and executive functioning. Deficits in these areas affect linguistic and nonlinguistic pragmatic skills. Aims: The current study investigated PTA duration relative to effect on linguistic and nonlinguistic pragmatic skills in a group of adults with chronic traumatic brain injury. Methods & Procedures: Ten males with TBI resulting from motor vehicle accidents (MVA) participated. Linguistic and nonlinguistic pragmatic abilities were measured by the Revised Edinburgh Functional Communication Profile (REFCP). These skills were examined relative to PTA duration, pre-morbid IQ, mental status, and cognitive severity. Outcomes & Results. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) results indicated nonlinguistic pragmatic performance was significantly poorer than linguistic pragmatic skills, as measured by the REFCP. Pearson Product-Moment correlations revealed no significant findings between PTA duration and linguistic pragmatic skills. However, there was a significant negative relationship between PTA duration and nonlinguistic pragmatic abilities. Conclusions: PTA duration was not significantly related to linguistic pragmatic skills; thus, it may not be a useful tool for examining long-term outcome of these abilities. As initial PTA duration was significantly correlated with current nonlinguistic pragmatic functioning, it may predict chronic outcome for certain nonlinguistic pragmatic behaviors.