Core Lexicon Analysis is a discourse assessment originally developed by Dalton & Richardson (2015) that measures the typicality of words used in a semi-structured discourse task. This web-app is intended to facilitate efficient and accurate core lexicon scoring for both research and clinical practice.
At this stage, we would appreciate feedback on the app - whether related to bugs/issues with the app or requested features. Please provide feedback or report bugs using the issues tab in the github repository.
Detailed installed instructions can be found here: https://github.com/rbcavanaugh/coreLexicon/wiki
CoreLex checklists have been developed for a variety of widely used discourse tasks (including picture description, picture sequence, story retell, procedures, and unfamiliar narrative production) have been developed using large samples of healthy control speakers (Dalton et al., 2020). CoreLex is a micro-linguistic measure which provides information about word retrieval and lexical access in connected speech samples. CoreLex checklists consist of lemmas that are scored as either present (1) or absent (0), which makes scoring very simple.
CoreLex has shown good sensitivity in differentiating between controls and individuals with aphasia (Dalton & Richardson, 2015; Fromm et al., 2017), between individuals with fluent and non-fluent aphasia (Kim et al., 2019; Kim et al., 2021), and between aphasia subtypes (Dalton & Richardson, 2015; Fromm et al., 2017). Studies have also demonstrated that CoreLex is related to standardized measures of aphasia (Kim et al., 2019, Kim et al., 2021), other discourse measures (Alyahya et al., 2021; Dalton & Richardson, 2019; Kim & Wright, 2020) and picture naming (Alyahya et al., 2021). Preliminary evidence also suggests that corelex might be sensitive to treatment-induced changes in some PWA (Dalton et al., 2020; Dede & Hoover, 2021).
Briefly, the app works by converting an orthographic transcription into tokens, finding the lemma associated with each token, and matching these lemmas with established core lexicon checklists. The user is asked to double check that no core lexicon targets were missed, or identified in error. A percentile score is then calculated using norms reported by values in our publications (Richardson & Dalton, 2015, 2019; Dalton & Richardson, 2018; Dalton et al., 2020), but are updated several times a year with additional participants scored in Dr. Richardson’s lab. The app is written in the {shiny} framework. The app is currently in Beta, and is not yet ready for research or clinical deployment. Please note, the app does not save any data from each user session.
Dalton, S. G., & Richardson, J. D. (2015). Core-lexicon and main-concept production during picture-sequence description in adults without brain damage and adults with aphasia. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 24(4), S923-S938.
Dalton, S. G. H., Hubbard, H. I., & Richardson, J. D. (2020). Moving toward non-transcription based discourse analysis in stable and progressive aphasia. Seminars in Speech and Language, 41(1), 32-44.
Dalton, S. G. H., Kim, H., Richardson, J. D., & Wright, H. H. (2020). A compendium of core lexicon checklists. Seminars in Speech and Language, 41(1), 45-60.
DeDe, G., & Hoover, E. (2021). Measuring Change at the Discourse-Level Following Conversation Treatment: Examples From Mild and Severe Aphasia. Topics in Language Disorders, 41(1), 5-26.
Fromm, D., Forbes, M., Holland, A., Dalton, S. G., Richardson, J., & MacWhinney, B. (2017). Discourse characteristics in aphasia beyond the Western Aphasia Battery cutoff. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 26(3), 762-768.
Kim, H., & Wright, H. H. (2020). Concurrent validity and reliability of the core lexicon measure as a measure of word retrieval ability in aphasia narratives. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 29(1), 101-110.
Kim, H., Kintz, S., & Wright, H. H. (2021). Development of a measure of function word use in narrative discourse: core lexicon analysis in aphasia. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 56(1), 6-19.
Kim, H., Kintz, S., Zelnosky, K., & Wright, H. H. (2019). Measuring word retrieval in narrative discourse: Core lexicon in aphasia. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 54(1), 62-78.