A-40 Utility of the Spanish Auditory and Visual Naming Test in identifying word- finding difficulty in Spanish-speaking adults with Epilepsy

Abstract

Abstract Objective Although visual naming (VN) and complementary auditory naming (AN) have proven clinically useful in the pre-surgical work-up of adults with epilepsy, they are available only in English, which compromises assessment for many native Spanish-speakers. VN is typically assessed with the Pontón-Satz Boston Naming Test (PS-BNT), yet this measure is of questionable validity due to vocabulary confounds and inclusion of culturally unfamiliar items. This pilot study examines the utility of the Spanish Auditory and Visual Naming Test (S-AVNT) in a small sample of native Spanish speakers with epilepsy. Method 20 adult, native Spanish-speaking patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE; 12 left, 8 right) were recruited (Mage = 41 years, SD = 10.1; Meducation = 12 years, SD = 2.8). Performance measures included: Accuracy (% correct), response time (RT), and tip-of-tongue errors (TOT; i.e., correct responses > 2 seconds or correct following a phonemic cue). Results Results: S-AVNT accuracy was high across RTLE and LTLE groups (93-97%) compared to the PS-BNT (59%; p = .000). There were no significant group-level differences, however within-group analyses revealed that VN was superior to AN across all performance measures (all ps < .01). Conclusions These preliminary findings represent the first step towards valid, culturally appropriate AN and VN tests for use with native Spanish speakers. The significant within-subjects differences are promising, particularly with respect to RT (i.e., slower auditory RT compared with visual RT) and TOT errors (i.e., auditory TOT > visual TOT), and may provide a more complete picture of naming ability than accuracy scores alone. Funded by NAN Clinical Research Grant.