Text Aphasia Battery (TAB)

The Text Aphasia Battery (TAB) is a modified subset of the Quick Aphasia Battery (QAB) designed to assess aphasic symptoms in environments where input and output modalities are restricted to text. TAB is especially useful for large-scale identification of aphasic features in applications such as corpus studies and evaluations of large language models (LLMs). Note: TAB is not a replacement for the QAB or other clinical diagnostic tools.

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Overview

TAB consists of four subtests that evaluate different aspects of language function:

1. Connected Text
2. Word Comprehension
3. Sentence Comprehension
4. Repetition

Each subtest comes with specific instructions and scoring criteria, aimed at detecting various aphasic markers.

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Subtests

1. Connected Text

• Objective:
  Evaluate fluency, grammaticality, and coherence of speech.

• Instructions:
  Respond to the following prompts in 3–5 full sentences:

  • "Tell me about the best trip you ever took."
  • "Describe a happy childhood memory."
  • "Tell me about your first job."
  • "What do you like about where you live?"
  • "Describe what is happening in the following scene: The boy is pushing the girl."

• Scoring:
  Uses adapted non-motor APROCSA features (see Notes on Evaluation).

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2. Word Comprehension

• Objective:
  Evaluate lexical-semantic processing and selection among competing meanings.

• Instructions:
  Elicit responses verbatim for the following:

  • "Which one is an animal: ‘lion’ or ‘drum’?"
  • "Which object is typically used to make music: ‘violin’ or ‘giraffe’?"
  • "Which item is usually worn on the feet: ‘boot’ or ‘boat’?"
  • "Which object is used for cutting: ‘knife’ or ‘kite’?"
  • "Which one is a large mammal with a long neck: ‘giraffe’ or ‘horse’?"

• Scoring:
  Responses are scored in a binary fashion (correct/incorrect). Incorrect selections may indicate deficits in semantic processing.

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3. Sentence Comprehension

• Objective:
  Evaluate syntactic processing, comprehension of passive structures, and logical reasoning.

• Instructions:
  Elicit responses verbatim for the following:

  • "Are babies watched by babysitters?" (Expected: Yes)
  • "Do you cut the grass with an axe?" (Expected: No)
  • "If you’re about to leave, have you left yet?" (Expected: No)
  • "Are witnesses questioned by police?" (Expected: Yes)
  • "If I was at the park when you arrived, did I get there first?" (Expected: Yes)

• Scoring:
  Delayed or incorrect responses may indicate difficulties with syntactic processing, handling of negation, or confusion with passive constructions.

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4. Repetition

• Objective:
  Evaluate morphosyntactic integrity.

• Instructions:
  Elicit responses verbatim for the following:

  • "Please repeat exactly: house."
  • "Please repeat exactly: breakfast."
  • "Please repeat exactly: catastrophe."
  • "Please repeat exactly: The sun rises in the East."
  • "Please repeat exactly: The ambitious journalist discovered where we’d be going."

• Scoring:
  Check for exact reproduction. Errors (e.g., phonemic substitutions, deletions, or distortions) indicate issues with morphosyntactic processing.

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Notes on Evaluation

TAB scoring is based on binary pass/fail criteria according to predefined aphasic markers. The evaluation focuses on the following linguistic features:

• Anomia: Word-finding failures or circumlocutions.
• Paraphasias:
  • Semantic Paraphasias: Substitution of one content word for another.
  • Phonemic Paraphasias: Errors in sound production (substitution, insertion, deletion, or transposition).
• Agrammatism: Omission of function words or morphemes.
• Paragrammatism: Incorrect or inappropriate grammatical structures.
• Empty Speech: Overuse of vague, nonspecific words.
• Repetition/Reading Errors: Deletions, insertions, or distortions.

For Connected Text, each response should be evaluated for the presence (1) or absence (0) of the following APROCSA features:

• Anomia
• Abandoned utterances
• Empty speech
• Semantic paraphasias
• Phonemic paraphasias (evaluated at token-level in models)
• Neologisms
• Jargon
• Perseverations
• Stereotypies and automatisms
• Short and simplified utterances
• Omission of bound morphemes
• Omission of function words
• Paragrammatism
• Retracing
• False starts
• Conduite d’approche
• Meaning unclear
• Off-topic
• Overall communication impairment

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Automatic Identification Prompt

The TAB is built for automatic evaluation using in-context LLM prompting. The system processes a transcript and produces a JSON file with each linguistic feature as a key and its value set to 1 (feature present) or 0 (feature not present).

Instructions

• Input:
  A transcript passage.

• Processing:
  Analyze the transcript according to the definitions and examples below.

• Output:
  A JSON file that includes every one of the following features as keys:

  • Anomia
  • Abandoned utterances
  • Empty speech
  • Semantic paraphasias
  • Phonemic paraphasias
  • Neologisms
  • Jargon
  • Perseverations
  • Stereotypies and automatisms
  • Short and simplified utterances
  • Omission of bound morphemes
  • Omission of function words
  • Paragrammatism
  • False starts
  • Retracing
  • Conduite d’approche
  • Meaning unclear
  • Off-topic
  • Overall communication impairment

Output Format

Your JSON output must include each feature as a key with its corresponding value (0 or 1). Do not include any additional keys or extraneous information.

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Examples

Example 1

Hypothetical Passage:

"I was trying to tell you about my day but I just I mean I wanted to say something about the store I go store I wanted a pen I mean pencil The ball the ball the ball kept bouncing and I just stopped you know I keep saying dammit dammit dammit all the time"

Associated JSON Output:

{
  "Anomia": 1,
  "Abandoned utterances": 1,
  "Empty speech": 0,
  "Semantic paraphasias": 0,
  "Phonemic paraphasias": 0,
  "Neologisms": 0,
  "Jargon": 0,
  "Perseverations": 1,
  "Stereotypies and automatisms": 1,
  "Short and simplified utterances": 1,
  "Omission of bound morphemes": 1,
  "Omission of function words": 1,
  "Paragrammatism": 0,
  "False starts": 0,
  "Retracing": 0,
  "Conduite d’approche": 0,
  "Meaning unclear": 0,
  "Off-topic": 0,
  "Overall communication impairment": 1
}

Example 2

Hypothetical Passage:

"I want to go to the store to buy a blorf You know I keep trying to say it but I say I want to go to the st store I want a pa pen I mean pencil I dont know what im trying to say It all seems not right"

Associated JSON Output:

{
  "Anomia": 1,
  "Abandoned utterances": 0,
  "Empty speech": 0,
  "Semantic paraphasias": 0,
  "Phonemic paraphasias": 0,
  "Neologisms": 1,
  "Jargon": 0,
  "Perseverations": 0,
  "Stereotypies and automatisms": 0,
  "Short and simplified utterances": 0,
  "Omission of bound morphemes": 0,
  "Omission of function words": 0,
  "Paragrammatism": 0,
  "False starts": 1,
  "Retracing": 0,
  "Conduite d’approche": 1,
  "Meaning unclear": 1,
  "Off-topic": 0,
  "Overall communication impairment": 1
}

Important: Your analysis must strictly adhere to the definitions and examples provided. No additional keys or information should be included in the output JSON.

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Sources

1. Wilson SM, Eriksson DK, Schneck SM, Lucanie JM.
   A quick aphasia battery for efficient, reliable, and multidimensional assessment of language function.
   PLoS One 2018; 13(2): e0192773.

2. Casilio M, Rising K, Beeson PM, Bunton K, Wilson SM.
   Auditory-perceptual rating of connected speech in aphasia.
   Am J Speech Lang Pathol 2019; 28: 550-68.

Definitions and examples for the automatic identification prompt are adapted from Table 1 of Casilio et al. (2019).

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Disclaimer

The TAB is intended for research and evaluation purposes only. It should not be used as a clinical diagnostic tool or a substitute for professional evaluation.

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome! If you wish to improve or extend TAB:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create your feature branch.
3. Commit your changes.
4. Open a pull request.

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License

the TAB is released openly under the MIT license