Correct Information Unit (CIU) as a measure of communicative informativeness and efficiency in persons with aphasia

Abstract

Correct information unit (CIU) assesses the language performance in persons with aphasia. It is a rule based scoring system for measuring the communicative performance of persons with aphasia in connected speech and language which has two important aspects i.e. Communicative informativeness and Communicative efficiency (Nicholas and Brookshire, 1993). The present study aimed at identification of CIU in connected speech and language of three persons with aphasia as a measure of communicative informativeness and efficiency in the Indian context. It was found that there was a difference between the neuro-typical participants and person with aphasia in words per minute (WPM) and percent CIU per minute (% CIU). It was observed that both the groups performed better in the measure of % CIU per minute than the measure of WPM. Clinical application of the CIU analysis is certainly warranted for assessment of connected speech. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of CIU will help professionals to differentially diagnose fluent from non-fluent types of aphasia. It may also yield a stable base line performance against which, changes in connected speech with treatment can be measured.