Self-Correction

Psycholinguistic Approaches to Understanding Clinical Aspects

Within the broader field of communication pathology, the phenomenon of self-correction has been studied by two groups of aphasiologists. Initially, aphasiologists working within a linguistic-processing-oriented paradigm examined self-correction from a psycholinguistic perspective. Several important findings relevant to clinical practice flowed from this research. Clients with relatively intact error detection and correction facilities are thought to display greater prognostic potential than those with more marked impairments. Further, several authors discovered significant correlations between the overall severity of a given client’s aphasia syndrome and the ability to correct erroneous speech. Associations between different aphasia types and editing skill are less supported by the literature. Experimental investigations of impaired self-correction have helped to refine models of word retrieval. Additionally, studies of self-correction in Broca’s aphasia have led a few authors to postulate a pre-articulatory process that supplements the function of online monitoring mechanisms. Impaired speakers appear to rely on this pre-speech corrective device more than unimpaired speakers.

Conversation Analytical Views

In the 1990s, a number of studies of self-correction conducted within the CA enquiry tradition were published. All such endeavors begin by invoking long-established aspects of self-correction as an element of conversation as engaged in by neurotypical interlocutors. Trouble sources, including lapses in the usual, unproblematic process of word retrieval, as well as the production of outright speech errors, occasion repairs. Repairs may be initiated by the producer of the problematic string or by another interactant. Similarly, once the need for a repair is established, it can be carried out by either the speaker who produced the error or by another speaker. The mechanics of conversation are structured such that self-initiated, self-executed repairs attend the majority of trouble spots in everyday interaction. Repair work shines the spotlight on trouble sources and represents a detour from the interactional business currently dealt with in any given conversation. Various analyses have demonstrated that the identification and repair of trouble spots is usually handled delicately by interlocutors since issues of pride, normality, rights of expression and interpretation, and competence are often implicated in these sequences.

Investigations into repair in conversations involving aphasic and nonaphasic interlocutors have illustrated that the above interactional patterns are only partially evident in data gathered across many settings. Some nonimpaired conversationalists featured in a range of publications employ strategies, such as paraphrasing, to avoid openly directing speakers with aphasia to rectify speech errors, thereby backgrounding trouble spots and foregoing the challenges inherent in other initiated repair. Conversely, other participants appear more oriented toward requiring semantic and phonemic accuracy in the utterances of speakers with aphasia; spouses, siblings, and Speech–Language pathologists have all been observed (in a range of research studies) explicitly instructing people with aphasia to correct erroneous productions. Furthermore, people with aphasia and their spouses may co-operate in creating other-controlled repair interchanges, which has led some researchers to speculate that spouses may be permitted to correct partners’ speech without engendering the negative affect associated with calls for revision made in other dyads. In general, speakers with linguistic processing deficits struggle to produce repaired forms after an error has been made. If any party in a conversation (people with or without aphasia) insists that corrected forms need to be produced before a [Page 1668]conversation can proceed, large amounts of time and energy are usually dedicated to repair while the interactional business being attempted before the error is ignored at least temporarily.

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