Communication is complex. It is verbal and nonverbal, thinking and speech, cognition, motor skills, memory, listening and looking and so much more..WE ARE NEVER NOT COMMUNICATING (even with the ‘silent treatment’…..)

Why this picture?  This is your brain (fMRI) when you communicate! All of these brain pathways connecting, integrating, synthesising…(Acknowledgement: University of Delaware. Fibre tracts that provide communication between different parts of the brain.)

Consider this:
As I listen to you talk I am simultaneously processing your meaning from the spoken words and sentence structure, evaluating your intent from your body language and speech inflections and making judgments about you as a person (i.e. credibility, background, age, dress sense…. and so on!). Did you mean that literally or do you have a wry sense of humour? In order to give you my full focus I am also inhibiting background and internal distractions and the multiple associations I may have with the topic and the impulse to say them.
Concurrently I am formulating a view and a response, holding in memory my intent whilst I select the right words and sentence frame appropriate to the level of the conversation and social context. I may also bring in a wider context – of past engagements, of social connections, of topic knowledge, of associated topics while all the time listening, processing, discerning and discarding that which is not immediately relevant.

And this is all in nanoseconds!

Assessment involves unpicking each “piece” –
Word finding – fluency, category, phonemic, confrontational, contextual
Language formulation and comprehension and level of complexity
Ability to abstract – metaphoric, figurative, ambiguous language
Ability to remember – working memory, auditory-verbal memory, hold intent, follow instructions etc.
Processing speed
Generative language.
Literacy – functionality in reading and writing.
Appropriateness of communication in context – see Social and Interpersonal Communication Skills