Abstract Speech-language pathologists routinely use picture description tasks to assess expository discourse in clients with disorders such as aphasia and dementia. One picture description task – the Cookie Theft picture from the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination – has come to dominate clinical settings more than any other task. In this article, I examine why this particular picture description task has proven to be so successful in assessing expository discourse in clients with language and cognitive disorders. Using data from the University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer and Related Dementias Study, recurrent cognitive-linguistic impairments in the Cookie Theft picture descriptions of clients with Alzheimer’s dementia are explored. These impairments are mostly pragmatic in nature. It is argued that the sensitivity of the Cookie Theft picture description task to these impairments makes it an ideal assessment tool for any investigation which aims to identify pragmatic markers of neurodegenerative diseases such as the dementias.

中文翻译：

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描述 Cookie 盗窃图片

摘要 语言病理学家通常使用图片描述任务来评估患有失语症和痴呆症等疾病的客户的说明性话语。一项图片描述任务——波士顿诊断性失语症检查中的饼干盗窃图片——比任何其他任务都更能主导临床环境。在本文中，我研究了为什么这种特殊的图片描述任务在评估语言和认知障碍客户的说明性话语方面如此成功。使用匹兹堡大学阿尔茨海默氏症和相关痴呆症研究的数据，探索了阿尔茨海默氏症患者的 Cookie 盗窃图片描述中反复出现的认知语言障碍。这些损害本质上大多是务实的。