Dr Danielle Jones to speak at the 4th International Conference on Conversational Analysis

Along with her colleagues from the Dementia Communications Research Network (DCRN), which she founded in 2012, Danielle will present on the panel ‘Dementia and Interaction: Applying CA in the field of communication disorders’.

Her presentation will explore the initial analyses from a conversation analytic study (undertaken in collaboration with Professor Paul Drew of Loughborough University and Neurologist at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield, UK), which aims to improve the early diagnosis of dementia by identifying interactional features that are manifest during clinical encounters in a UK memory clinic.

It seeks to describe distinct conversational profiles defined by these particular features of talk, which could be implemented as a diagnostic tool to help clinicians distinguish between patients presenting with a form of dementia and those presenting with other functional memory complaints.

Other contributors to the panel include:

Lindholm, C (University of Helsinki) - Parallel realities: Confabulations as an interactional achievement

Samuelsson, C (Linkoping University) – Co-construction of understanding in conversation involving people with dementia.

Plejert, C (Linkoping University) – Interpreter-mediated interaction in dementia assessments of ethnic minority patients.

Lindley, L (York St John University) - Doing Being Ordinary: a complex case study of fluctuating competencies in the quotidian life of a person with dementia.

McArthur, A (California State University) - “I don’t like your face!” A sequential analysis of enactments of dementia behavior among long-term caregivers

The conference, organised by the International Society for Conversation Analysis, is a quadrennial event and is one of the largest international gatherings of scholars interested in the method and application of conversation analysis.

Further details about the conference are available at http://icca14.sscnet.ucla.edu